Choosing the right color for your new car is a big decision-you want to choose a color that matches your personal style. When you interpret fancy paint colors (with strange exotic names such as "Sunset Coral", "Moroccan Oyster" and "Gunpowder Slate"), you also need to consider surface treatments.

Many car manufacturers now offer paint finishes other than standard solid coatings—especially metallic and pearl colors. When you customize a car, make sure you understand the difference between metallic gloss coating and pearl gloss coating.

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The metallic paint has a reflective luster and looks a lot like the metallic paint you see on a model toy car. This metallic luster comes from powdered metal particles mixed with colored pigments into the paint. Under normal circumstances, aluminum specifications give metallic paint a sparkling luster, making the colors look more vivid.

Pearl paint uses mica to give the car a subtle array of colors. These tiny man-made ceramic crystals reflect and refract light, and when you look at the paint, the light will change the color you see. For example, when sunlight reflects off an ivory pearl car paint, you may briefly see a lilac or silver shimmer, depending on how the mica splits the spectrum.

These special paint treatments are becoming more and more common in ordinary economy class vehicles. Metallic paints were once reserved for sports cars, but now you can find them on Subaru SUVs. Pearl luster used to be only used in luxury cars, but now you can find them in cars such as the Toyota Prius.

So no matter which color and finish you choose for your car, be sure to check it out with your own eyes first: its appearance in your eyes may be very different from the appearance in the picture.

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Aaron makes no secret of being a native of Cleveland and a proud driver of the Hyundai Veloster Turbo (which recently replaced his 1995 Saturn SC-2). He happily used his background in drama, literature, and communication to memorize his articles dramatically to nearby young people. Mr. Widmar and his handsome wife Vicki live happily in Dayton, Ohio, but often explore new destinations with her. Aaron has high ambitions for his writing career, but is often distracted when thinking about the deep nature of the human condition and forgets what he is writing... See more articles by Aaron.