The latest addition to our Maine Coon family has mainly cream fur. His name is Oscar and his official color is red smoke.
Cream is just one of the colors that Maine Coon cats wear with pride and as you will see, there is an amazing array of cream coat variations.
The cream Maine Coon explained
A cream Maine Coon has pale fur that ranges from off-white to very pale red. In cat coats, cream is technically a dilute version of red. You might also hear this color referred to as buff. A solid cream Maine Coon has a pink nose and paw pads and pink rims to its eyes.
The solid cream Maine Coon
To be considered a solid cream Maine Coon, a cat must have the same shade of cream all over without any markings. Every hair shaft must be the same shade from root to tip.
The full set of Cream Maine Coon patterns
Many Maine Coons have an amount of cream in their fur. According to the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA), there are an incredible 26 different coat patterns that exhibit the cream color in some form.
The differences are so subtle, only an expert can distinguish between them
The following Maine Coon coats feature cream fur in varying shades.
Tabby Pattern Class
- Cream tabby
- Cream tabby and white
- Cream silver tabby
- Silver patched tabby
- Blue-patched tabby
- Blue-silver patched tabby
Bi-color class
- Cream and white
Parti-color class
- Blue-cream
Parti-color and white class
- Dilute calico
- Blue-cream and white
Shaded and smoke color class
- Shell cream
- Shaded cream
- Shell blue-cream
- Shaded blue-cream
- Cream smoke
- Tortie smoke
- Blue-cream smoke
Shaded/Smoke & White Color Class
- Shell cream and white
- Shaded cream and white
- Shell blue-cream and white
- Shaded blue-cream and white
- Shell dilute calico
- Shaded dilute calico
- Cream smoke and white
- Blue-cream smoke and white
- Dilute calico smoke
You can find full descriptions of each of these coats in this CFA document.
All of the tabby coats mentioned above can exhibit the mackerel, classic or ticked tabby Maine Coon pattern.
Different shades of cream can be seen as the background color, at the roots and within the pattern.
All smoke Maine Coons have fur with white roots and darker tips. In cream cats, there is only a very subtle difference.
Cream Maine Coons are not rare
Though some Maine Coons cat colors are rarer than others, cream is a fairly common Maine Coon color. It results when a red coat develops as a paler shade because of the presence of the dilution gene.
A solid cream Maine Coon is quite rare but it is common to see Maine Coons of other patterns with some cream in their coats.
Cat genetics are fairly complex but simply put, all cat coats are a product of one or more of the following colors: red, black, and white.
Red and black can be diluted meaning red can appear as a very pale cream through to a lighter red, and black can appear as varying shades of blue (or grey if you like.)
And really, white is not a color but is the result of a masking gene concealing the color that was programmed to develop.
It is incredible how many different Maine Coon coat colors and patterns have evolved from white and all the possible shades of red and blue.
Cream Maine Coon: Conclusion
Cream Maine Coons with solid coats can sometimes be so pale that they are mistaken for white Maine Coons. They can also be a darker shade of cream that is almost pale red or ginger.
The cream color is often seen in other Maine Coon coat patterns – 26 of them in fact!