Why Farrow & Ball’s ‘Dead Salmon’ sticks in my throat – and has to go

The upmarket paintsmith has been asked to refresh the names of some of its more fanciful palettes… and it couldn’t have come sooner for animal lovers like me, says Wendy Rigg

Throwing shade: Farrow & Ball have been asked to rename their popular beige paint, Dead Salmon, for fear of upsetting vegans (Supplied)

The first Farrow & Ball paint I ever bought was of a shade called Rangwali. A beautiful dusty pink, it was inspired – so it said on the tin – by the Hindu festival of spring, when people gather in the streets and throw rainbow-coloured powder at each other. I was totally sold just because of the evocative name, which transported me straight to India; I could virtually smell incense as I opened the tin.

It didn’t bother me in the slightest that I could have got a cheaper paint. It felt special, the colour was distinctive – and it was all so much more thrilling than buying Petal Pink in B&Q.

There’s a Farrow & Ball shop near me, which means my postcode is bursting with people unfazed by paying large amounts of money to coat their living rooms in shades of Mizzle and Churlish Green.

Farrow & Ball are famous for giving their products quirky names – that, and the wails from decorators about how tricky their paints can be to apply. I’ve no doubt it makes for great dinner party conversation as neighbours get all competitive about whose downstairs loo has the oddest-named hue: Dimpse, String, Down Pipe.

But the shade names that make me see red (or should I say Incarnadine, Romesco or Radicchio?) are those that appear to normalise the ill-treatment of animals. I’m ashamed that it’s taken an intervention by the activists at Peta for the penny to drop. I’ve turned a little Loggia, or is it Menagerie, in embarrassment.

I’ve been vegetarian for more than 40 years, and I hate to see any form of cruelty, so whether it’s intended to be witty or not, Dead Salmon, Potted Shrimp and Smoked Trout do rather strike me as beyond the pale.

The animal activists have written to the company to ask if the most problematic paint names might be reworked to be more “vegan-friendly”. Their recommendations that Dead Salmon could become “Magic Mushroom”, and Au Lait the more plant-based “Lait de Coco” – are good ones.

But what it means for Elephant’s Breath, F&B’s most popular shade of all – or Dove’s Tail – is anyone’s guess. Mouse’s Back now sounds like a trip to the vivisectionists. Pelt is animal fur by another name. Lobster, Sardine and Pigeon are surely all off the menu.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for a bit of fun. Anything that makes people smile in these troublesome times has got to be good, right? It’s a laugh to splash a bit of Arsenic on an internal door, or slather a bedroom in Sulking Room Pink.

And I have no problem with people eating fish and meat – if it’s responsibly sourced! But, as Peta vice-president Yvonne Taylor wrote in her letter to Farrow & Ball, “renaming colours that normalise animal abuse is one way to remind others that animals are not food but sentient individuals and members of the delicate ecosystem we all share”. She went on to describe how salmon and trout were mass-produced in “filthy factory farms”.

Worth thinking about as you sugar-soap the smallest room for a spot of DIY on the last bank holiday of the summer. I wonder if Farrow & Ball have a sludgy mucky green named “Gripe”?