Use literal or metaphorical descriptions of label colors?

Related to https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/61788, in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/28343#note_174320588 I listed a couple of possible standards for naming colors. Here are the seemingly “best” options:

Literal color descriptions:

Colorhexa is great because it gives a clear color description: #ffecdb is very pale orange. But it's only as great as one's ability to see colors properly. For a blind person, what does “very pale orange” mean?

Metaphorical color descriptions:

I found this interesting color thesaurus created by a writer. In her words: “I can paint a more evocative image in my reader’s mind if I describe a character’s hair as the color of rust or carrot-squash, rather than red.” So this seems to align better with the purpose of helping visually impaired people. The closest color term for #ffecdb would be coconut.

According to the MR author, https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/28343#note_174397856:

I spoke to a blind friend and as you suggested equating the colours to something that has a taste, smell or distinctive texture is probably the best way to ensure each colour is linked to something distinct e.g. brown coconut. If the objective is to empower the visually impaired people then that is probably the optimal approach.

But @matejlatin has doubts about using the color thesaurus, https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/28343#note_174723376:

ColorHexa seems to have more 'detailed' names so that's even better. I'm not sure if the label coconut would work for a colour blind person. I can tell from my own experience, I sometimes can't tell red and green apart and I just want to know whether the colour is one or the other (because the meaning is usually exclusive—either positive or negative).

Ideally, the decision to use one approach or the other should be based on research.