Sitting under the shaded porch of a Southern home, your eye may wander and catch a blue colored ceiling above your head – a staple across the South – and people are just finding out why.
The hues of the Southern porch ceiling originated in the 1800s in an attempt to ward off and confuse spirits.
‘Haint Blue’ was first used in Charleston and is associated with the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans in parts of Georgia and South Carolina.
The color was believed to repel haints, or ghosts and spirits, by tricking them into believing the ceiling was water or sky.
Porches in the South continue on with the tradition – but now to keep a different kind of pest at bay.
Many southerners claim the light blue colors also repel insects.
One viral TikTok had a creator contemplating painting her porch blue to keep bees and spiders away.
Another creator, Raguel, responded and said: ‘Sometimes us Southerners know a thing or two.’
‘Haint Blue’ was first used in Charleston and is associated with the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans in parts of Georgia and South Carolina. The color was believed to repel haints, or ghosts and spirits, by tricking them into believing the ceiling was water or sky
Porches in the South continue on with the tradition – but now to keep a different kind of pest at bay. Many Southerners claim the light blue colors also repel insects
He showed off his porch with the ceiling painted a light blue, and said that both his front and back porch had the color painted on with no issues with spider webs, wasps or ‘anything like that’.
Users who commented on the video chimed in with their own experiences, with one who said: ‘As a pest control technician I tell my customers about this all the time. It isn’t full proof but it does help a lot.’
‘Painting it blue really does help. It’s not an end all solution but it’s a drastic improvement,’ another wrote.
‘We have done the same front and back porch learned it from Louisiana and I’m in Florida. Works well,’ one said.
Just as the belief that spirits would become confused by the color emulating that of water or the sky, a similar belief is held when it comes to bugs.
Ellen O’Neill, the director of strategic design intelligence at Benjamin Moore, told Today: ‘If an insect perceives that a ceiling is really the sky, it instinctively wouldn’t nest there.
‘It depends how deep you want to go into the brain of an insect… but it’s not unlike how ladybugs will land on a white house. It’s a visual trick.’
Dr Michael Reiskind, entomology professor at North Carolina State University, told Good Housekeeping, however, that it is probably more likely that it serves as a less attractive color than a repellent.
Just as the belief that spirits would become confused by the color emulating that of water or the sky, a similar belief is held when it comes to bugs
Sue Wadden of Sherwin-Williams said: ‘People paint the porch ceiling blue because the color seems to emulate the natural sky and makes daylight hours feels as though they last just a little longer’
Dr Michael Reiskind, entomology professor at North Carolina State University, said that it is probably more likely that it serves as a less attractive color than a repellent
‘I doubt any colors are very repellant to insects, except in very specific situations. What is more common is that there are colors that are attractive to particular insects, including some shades of blue for flies, but color repellency is not well-supported,’ Reiskind said.
‘Most studies that people interpret as showing color repellence are actually only relative, such that colors are not necessarily ‘repellant’ just not as attractive as other alternatives.’
Reiskind went on to say that visual repellence to a specific color is ‘likely quite rare’, but that an insect may prefer certain colors for resource needs.
While the paint colors repellent effects on insects is not proven, many adopt the tradition simply due to its cultural significance, aesthetic or sense of nostalgia.
Sue Wadden of Sherwin-Williams told Real Simple: ‘People paint the porch ceiling blue because the color seems to emulate the natural sky and makes daylight hours feels as though they last just a little longer.’
But the superstitious tradition has been passed down through generations, making it a comfort to many today.
‘No one would think twice about painting their porch blue, because their grandmother’s and their parents’ [porches] were blue,’ O’Neill said.
‘It’s permeated into porch design.’