It’s official: The world’s ugliest colour has been revealed but the results actually might surprise you

AFTER months of research, a national government study has officially revealed the world’s ugliest colour and it is called Pantone 448.

According to geekologie, the Australian government hired an agency to find out which shade is most offensive to people.

GfK Bluemoon, who were in charge of the project, undertook seven studies with more than 1000 smokers to design the most unappealing packaging possible, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

And the reason the research was conducted was because the state wanted to use the most unsightly colour on cigarette packaging in order to deter people from buying them.

According to the site, the new colour and graphic health warnings have already been adopted in Australia back in 2012, but now the UK, Ireland and France are set to follow suit.

“The new color was adopted for all tobacco packaging along with graphic health warnings. Now, other governments are following suit,” it explains.

Pantone 448, also known as “opaque couché”, can only be described as a cross between brown, khaki and the official colour puke, which is a shade of dark green.

And those who took part in the study associated the colour with dirt, tar and death, according to researchers who commissioned the study four years ago.

“It had as its aim the antithesis of what is our usual objective,’’ said market researcher Victoria Parr.

‘‘We didn’t want to create attractive, aspirational packaging designed to win customers […] Instead our role was to help our client reduce demand, with the ultimate aim to minimise use of the product,” she added.

The new packaging, which will include both the dismal colour and the gruesome photos,  is due to hit the UK shelves soon and the European Union hope it will reduce the number of smokers by 2.4 million.

Shockingly, according to the British Medical Association, smoking costs the NHS £2.7 billion a year and the British economy loses £2.5 billion in sick leave and lost productivity, reports

But not everyone agrees with the packaging changes, the director of the smokers’ group Forest, Simon Clark, said the rules “treat adults like children and teenagers like idiots”.

He added: “Everyone knows the health risks of smoking and no-one starts because of the packaging.”