Are Hot Pink & Fuchsia Almost the Same Color?

Color Composition of Hot Pink and Fuchsia

• Hot pink and fuchsia look virtually the same to the human eye because they have two colors in common -- red and purple. Hot pink is a combination of red and a little purple, white and yellow. Fuchsia, on the other hand, is a combination of just red and purple. The addition of white and yellow to the red and purple in hot pink makes it a slightly less brilliant, less saturated color than fuchsia -- in short, it's a little pinker.

Complements

• Since hot pink and fuchsia are so similar, they have roughly the same complements. A complement is the color opposite the color you are considering on the color wheel. Complements are sure to look good together. The complement of a color will contain a combination of the two primary colors that are weakest in the color you are considering. The complements of hot pink and fuchsia are greens in the lime-green range; these greens contain a little blue and a lot of yellow, which makes sense because the primary color most prominent in hot pink and fuchsia is red.

Triads

• Triads are colors that are equidistant from each other on the color wheel. The triad for hot pink and fuchsia is hot pink or fuchsia, bright lime green and bright lemon yellow. Knowing complements and triads helps you design rooms, outfits and paintings with pleasing color combinations. Always use one color in the complement or triad as the main color, with the other color or colors as accents. For triads, a good rule of thumb is to use 60 percent of the main color, 30 percent of the secondary color and 10 percent of the accent color.

Hot Pink and Fuchsia in Feng Shui

• Feng shui is an ancient Chinese science of directing and balancing the flow of energy in an environment. One of the elements feng shui uses is color. Pinks in feng shui are yin (female) -- colors of love. The red in hot pink and fuchsia is the feng shui color of good fortune, luck, money, joy and protection. It it said to create confidence in the person who uses it and attracts the respect of other people. Purple is another yin color. It is said to increase spiritual awareness and promote mental and physical healing.