**Color Divisions in Persians**
- **Solid or Self:** Solid Persians exhibit a uniform color throughout their coat, including shades like blue, black, chocolate, lilac, cream, white, and red. Blues appear as deep gray, lilacs are warmer, reds are ginger or copper, chocolates are rich brown, blacks are pitch black, and whites resemble milk.
- **Tortoiseshell (Tortie):** Torties have a mottled two-color coat with minimal white, typically featuring combinations of cream, blue, black, red, lilac, and chocolate. Torties with white are often called calicos. All Torties generally have intense copper eyes.
- **Color Point:** Color Point Persians have darker markings on their extremities—ears, face, legs, and tail—due to their Siamese heritage. Colour points are known as Himalayans and include popular color combinations like Seal Point, Blue Point, Flame Point, Tortie Point, Cream Point, rare Lilac Point, Chocolate Point, and exotic Lynx and Bi-Color Points.
- **Tabby Patterns:** Tabby Persians display light coats with dark spots, marbling, or stripes in three main patterns:
- **Tiger of Mackerel Tabby:** Features stripes running around the body at a 90-degree angle.
- **Marbled Tabby:** Characterized by wide stripes with “bull’s eye” markings on the sides.
- **Patched Tabby:** Has large, round spots evenly distributed over the body.
These patterns can occur in colors like blue, silver, cream, red, and brown, with combinations such as blue-silver or silver-cream. Most have copper eyes, though those with silver coats often have green or hazel eyes.
- **Bi-Color:** Also known as Harlequins or Parti-Colors, Bi-Color Persians feature white combined with another color in dark patches. The precise ratio of white to color is of interest mainly to breeders. Common color combinations include white with red, black, blue, chocolate, lilac, or cream patches. They typically have copper eyes, though some breeding programs aim for blue or odd-eyed Bi-Color varieties.
- **Smoke and Shaded:** In Smoke and Shaded Persians, the coat looks solid but reveals a white undercoat when the cat moves or the hair is parted. Smokes have 50%-80% of each hair shaft colored, with white or silver roots. Shaded cats have only the upper third of the hairs colored, with the remainder light or white. The Golden Chinchilla, a rare variation, features a warm cream or apricot where black tipping is normally found.
---
Comments