Toyota's new Structural Blue paint shimmers on Lexus LC500

We normally think of color as the product of the absorption of certain wave-lengths to leave only the desired color to reflect. But it can also be produced by colorless surfaces that use an interference pattern to create colors.

This is demonstrated by the blue Morpho butterfly, whose iridescent wings are a dazzling blue because of this interference, rather than traditional coloring. The Morpho's wings look deep blue, but they're actually colorless. The blue sheen we see is created by light interference on their microscopic lattice surface structure.