Ragdoll colours
Lilac point Ragdolls
The lightest of the four: a frosted, pinkish grey on a milk white body, and the hardest colour to breed.
The lightest of the four: a frosted, pinkish grey on a milk white body, and the hardest colour to breed.
Lilac is chocolate and dilute together. The cat has two copies of the chocolate form of TYRP1 (b/b), which turns black pigment brown, and two copies of the dilute form of MLPH (d/d), which softens that brown to a frosty grey with a pink cast. Two recessive pairs have to line up, from both parents, which is why lilac is the rarest of the four solid colours.
GCCF’s breeding policy makes a point worth repeating: a cat can never carry lilac as such. It carries chocolate, and it carries dilute, and lilac is what you get when a kitten inherits both from both sides.
Lilac points are a frosty grey with a pinkish tone against a glacial or magnolia white body; nose leather and paw pads are lavender pink. The pink cast is the tell against a blue point, whose grey is cooler and steelier. Because the points are so light, lilacs keep the best body contrast of any colour well into old age.
Every Ragdoll is born white. The breed is fixed for the Siamese form of the colour gene (TYR, the cs allele), which makes the pigment enzyme temperature sensitive: it works on the cooler parts of the body and switches off where the cat is warm, which is why colour sits on the ears, mask, legs, feet and tail and the body stays pale. The same gene is the reason every pointed Ragdoll has blue eyes.
The first colour shows on the ear tips and nose within the first week or two, the mask and tail follow, and by eight weeks the pattern is clear enough to describe a kitten honestly. The points go on deepening for two to three years, and older cats carry more colour on the body; both breed standards allow for undeveloped colour in kittens and darker bodies in older cats. Two everyday consequences: a shaved patch grows back darker, and a cat kept in a cold house will colour up more than the same cat in a warm one.
Colour is not temperament. The kitten in front of you tells you far more than the name of its colour, which is why we price every pure Ragdoll the same, whatever it turns out to be.
Lilac is the slowest and subtlest colour to arrive. Kittens can look plain white for weeks, and breeders who work with the colour often confirm it by DNA rather than by eye, testing the parents for the chocolate and dilute genes.
We link to the registries’ own standards and to a university genetics laboratory rather than to other breeders, so you can check every claim above for yourself.
Seal pointDark brown points on warm cream
Blue pointSlate grey points on bluish white
Lilac pointFrosty pinkish grey points on milk white
Chocolate pointMilk chocolate points on ivory
ColourpointFull mask and points, no white
MittedWhite mittens, boots, chin and chest
BicolourWhite V on the face, white legs and belly
RagcoonRagdoll × Maine Coon, silvers and tabbiesNo premiums for colour, pattern or sex: every pure Ragdoll kitten here is £850, and our Ragcoons (Ragdoll × Maine Coon) are £600. The waiting list is the way to ask for a colour.