Red is attractive color. For example, those who drive red cars get pulled over more often than drivers of other car colors. It’s eye catching, and according to a new study published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, it’s profitable, too.

“In their study of 272 restaurant customers, researchers Nicolas Guéguen and Céline Jacob found not only that male patrons gave higher tips than female patrons in general, but that men gave between 14.6 percent and 26.1 percent more to waitresses wearing red, while color had no effect on female patrons’ tipping behavior at all,” stated a press release from SAGE Publications. “The researchers explained that previous research has found that red increases the physical and sexual attractiveness of women.”

The researchers had 11 waitresses wear the same T-shirt in different colors in five restaurants on different days over a six-week period. They told all the waitresses to act as they normally would to all customers and to record how much they received as a tip from each customer.

“As red color has no negative effect on women customers, it could be in their interest to wear red clothes at work,” the researchers said.

And now I can’t get the song “The Lady in Red” out of my head.

(Image via Flickr: Tim Dobbelaere / Creative Commons)