So, what is a kitten cap?
White is not a color in itself, but rather a mask. It is actually quite rare to have a white cat that is also white underneath. At any rate, the weakest point in the white mask is on top of the head. And the color that is displayed there is called a kitten cap, telling us a bit about what color is being masked. Most kitten caps we see consist of the darker, dominant colors like black and red. But even with a kitten cap like the one this little blue-eyed female has, we still can't say for sure if she is masking black, black smoke, brown tabby or silver tabby. All of these colors have black in them, as does her kitten cap. And there just isn't enough information in her kitten cap to tell what color is underneath. If you look really closely at the tiny streak above her left eye, you'll see a trace of red! The tiny streak actually looks more cream than red (a lot like a food smudge) which suggests that she may be a silver tabby since they do have lighter backgrounds behind the tabby barring. Whatever the actual color, it makes absolute sense that this little girl has red/cream in her kitten cap since her sire is a cameo. She had to inherit the red gene from him since females inherit one color gene from both parents. This is not to say that she has to show red in her kitten cap, just that she could because she had to inherit the gene and wear it somewhere in the color under her white mask.
Sometimes we see the lighter, recessive colors like blue or cream in kitten caps, but not often. The reason for this is quite simply that white covers lighter colors more effectively. - Just like applying a light color of paint over other colors, it often takes more than one coat to cover over darker colors. But, with our all white TAs, the white fills in on it's own as the kitten matures. Many kitten caps will in fact fade by the time a kitten is just a few weeks or months old. But, with larger kitten caps that are black, like the kitten pictured above, it can take up to a year or longer. This is not to say that it will take this kitten that long to lose her kitten cap, but it could...