TURKEY RED—HISTORY. We all thought at the time that “Turkey Red” was an unpromising name for for marketing a lipstick. I continue to think so, but I recently came across the history of the color, which turns out to be a distinguished one. Google gave me this article by W.H. Cliffe which says: “there was one shade, the most valuable of them all, a brilliant and solid fiery red, which could only be dyed in India and the Near East. British and French dyers could not imitate it, and it was so much sought after that cotton yarn would even be sent to the Levant for dyeing, and re-imported. The colour was known as Turkey Red….” This quilting site says that turkey red is not a color, but a dye process, and one which required 10 or 20 separate treatments.
So “Turkey Red” had an historical importance that was lost on high school freshmen.