COLOURS AND PATTERNS EXPLAINED
A Ragdoll cat is born ALL WHITE with its colour and pattern slowly developing up until 3 years of age. Therefore, most of the pictures you will see, especially those of kittens, will be of a mostly white cat except for the points (ears, nose, paws and of course the tail!) which will have colour.
The Colours and Patterns of a Ragdoll are easy to understand once you get the hang of it.
There are 6 basic colours
Colours:
Seal, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac, Red (also called Flame), and Cream. Some of these are diluted colours of the other.
SEAL: A dark brown that’s almost black.
BLUE (SEAL dilute): A dark bluish grey.
CHOCOLATE: Best described as a chocolate brown.
LILAC, (CHOCOLATE dilute): A noticeably lighter shade of blue/grey with a slight pinkish tinge.
RED or FLAME: Much like most red cats you’ve seen.
CREAM (RED dilute): A noticeably lighter shade of red.
That sums up the COLOURS and leads us to the PATTERNS, where I think most of the confusion comes in…
There are 5 basic patterns
Patterns:
COLOURPOINT:
A cat of any of the colours mentioned above, that has only one colour on its body. Bear in mind that a colourpoint has a darker shade of its body colour on its points. The “points” on a Ragdoll are its paws, tail, ears and face.
The cat in this photo is a seal colourpoint.
The cat in this photo is a blue colourpoint.
MITTED:
A cat much like the colourpoint and comes in Seal, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac, Red and Cream, but has white at some of the points. So, a mitted Ragdoll has white on its front paws, white on its rear legs, with a white chin and chest. The ears and tail are the same as on a colourpoint.
A seal mitted kitten aged 7 weeks, the colour is still developing here, so is not too strong in appearance.
The cat in the photo below is Leo at 1 year old, a blue mitted Ragdoll.
BICOLOUR:
A combination of any of the colours mentioned above that has 2 distinct colours on its face. The colour on its ears and top of the head are the same as the body colour, only darker. Additionally, a white “V” is present on the lower part of the face. A BICOLOUR Ragdoll has white legs and white on the face, with a body that may be mostly white with splashes of colour OR with solid colour covering the body.
Angel is a blue bi colour.
LYNX or TABBY:
Any of the patterns mentioned above, however, has dark stripes the same colour as the body. A tabby Ragdoll has white inside its ears and around the eyes, with reddish nose leather. Tabby Ragdolls ALSO combine patterns. There are Colourpoint and tabby mitted Ragdolls.
Below is a Tabby Mitted Ragdoll.
TORTIE:
Is a pattern that is gender specific. Only a female can be Tortie. When a kitten has a Red father or mother and a Seal as the other parent, some of the female kittens will be Tortie. A Tortie Ragdoll has splashes of dark colour on her face and body that’s mostly cream coloured. A blue cream is a female Ragdoll that had one Blue parent and one Red parent but is really a Tortie.
A Tabby Blue Cream bicolour.
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