What colour is blood before it mixes with oxygen? Is it Blue or Red?

Answer 1

Scarlet Red - Oxygenated Blood(In Arteries)
Dark Red - Unoxygenated Blood(In Veins)

Answer 2

Oxygnated blood is bright red due to the fact that haemoglobin in the red blood cells have become loaded with oxygen. If blood has CO2 passed through it, the blood goes dark red - not blue. The blue colour is caused by the pigmentation in the skin absorbing some of the spectral colours and changing the true colour od the venous blood which is deoxygentaed.

Answer 3

The colour of blood before it mixes with oxygen is red

Answer 4

Blood is varying shades of red.

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned haemoglobin's other use:

Blood becomes a lighter hue of red when saturated with oxygen due to the iron pigment in the centre of the haemoglobin molecule. However, blood flowing from muscles to lungs carries carbon dioxide which creates a darker shade of the red colour.

When you look at your (unbroken) veins through your skin, they can look blue, this is more due to the veins themselves rather than the blood within them.

People used to think the British royal family had blue-blood!

Answer 5

Vertebrate blood is red at all times. The iron in hemoglobin is what gives it hte red color. However, oxygenated blood is a bright red while deoxygenated blood is a darker red.

Many invertebrates, particularly most mulloscs and some arthropods, actually use hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin which has copper instead of iron. These invertebrates actually have blue blood when it is oxygenated.

Answer 6

As opposed to some answers, and in support to others, blood is never a blue hue. Blood has hemoglobin, which pigments it as red. The only difference is that when the hemoglobin carries oxygen, it has a brighter, rather scarlet red color. When deoxygenated, the redness of the blood slightly fades, thus, giving it a lighter hue--but still red.

Answer 7

There is no such thing as blue blood. There is deep red blood (venous) and bright red blood (arterial).
The blood picks up oxygen when it circulates through the lungs, carries it through the body where it is gradually depleted of oxygen and gathers carbon dioxide and other detrius from the system, then heads back to the lungs where it exchanges the CO2 for O2 and starts again.

Answer 8

When blood is mixed with oxygen, it is a distinctive bright red colour. When blood hasn't been mixed with oxygen, it's colour is a noticably dark red colour

Answer 9

Blue means cold and red means hot. This is the technical colour coding we plumbers use to decipher which tap makes hot water and which tap makes cold water.

Now, in terms of the application of this knowledge to the question, I would have to make an educated inference, and suggest that the blood that comes out of the blue pipes is cold, and the blood that comes out the red pipes is hot. Seeing as water is the same colour (or rather, lack of colour) at both hot and cold temperatures, it would seem ridiculous to assume that there would be a change in the colour of blood.

As for oxygen, what the heck is that?

Answer 10

blood is red - whether is is oxygenated or de-oxygenated

the whole blue blood/ red blood thing is merely a way of distinguishing the type of blood in diagrams and the like