Eggshell

An eggshell is the outer covering of a hard-shelled egg and of some forms of eggs with soft outer coats. Bird eggshells contain calcium carbonate and dissolve in various acids, including the vinegar used in cooking. While dissolving, the calcium carbonate in an egg shell reacts with the acid to form carbon dioxide.

Diversity

Insect eggs

Insects and other arthropods lay a variety of styles and shapes of eggs. Some have gelatinous or skin-like coverings, others have hard eggshells. Softer shells are mostly protein. It may be fibrous or quite liquid. Some arthropod eggs do not actually have shells, rather, their outer covering is actually the outermost embryonic membrane, the choroid, which serves to protect inner layers. The choroid itself can be a complex structure, and it may have different layers within it. It may have an outermost layer called an exochorion. Eggs which must survive in dry conditions usually have hard eggshells, made mostly of dehydrated or mineralized proteins with pore systems to allow respiration. Arthropod eggs can have extensive ornamentation on their outer surfaces.

Eggshell (color)

The color eggshell is meant as a representation of the average color of a chicken egg. Since the color of chicken eggs may vary between pale brown and white, the color is an average between those two, closer to white than pale brown, because more chicken eggs are white.

The source of this color is: ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955)--Color Sample of Eggshell (color sample #92).

In Interior design, the color eggshell is commonly used in interior design when one desires a pale, warm, neutral, off-white color.

Paint gloss

Eggshell paint also refers to a type of hard-wearing wall paint with the same matte sheen as an egg's shell, rather than the same color; consequently eggshell paint can be any color, not just off-white.

See also

References

Eggshell (disambiguation)

Eggshell is the covering of an egg.

Eggshell may also refer to: