Molasses
#574a47
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is mid — the hardest range to put text on, either colour struggles.
Hex
#574a47
RGB
87, 74, 71
OKLCh
42.1% 0.018 33.1°
CIELAB (D50)
32.7, 5.2, 3.9
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 4 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 12% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 89.2; on black, Lc -13.0. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 8.0 and 8.8 and 22.9 — no red cone.
Text on this colour
White text
8.48:1 — passes AA
Black text
2.48:1 — fails AA
White text is the better of the two at8.48:1. That is enough for body text.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#574a47
protanopia
#4c4c47 · ΔE00 8.0
deuteranopia
#4e4e47 · ΔE00 8.8
tritanopia
#515100 · ΔE00 22.9
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isBlack Sand at ΔE00 1.377: between 1 and 2 — a trained eye spots it when the two touch; nobody spots it across a room. What the numbers mean.
- Black SandΔE00 1.377 · #5b4e4b
- Charred HickoryΔE00 1.467 · #5b4e4a
- Piano BrownΔE00 1.856 · #5c4c4a
- Smooth CoffeeΔE00 1.938 · #5d4e4c
- ChinottoΔE00 2.012 · #554747
- Railroad TiesΔE00 2.122 · #544540
- Manchester BrownΔE00 2.276 · #504440
- Cabin in the WoodsΔE00 2.329 · #5d4d47
- Bear RugΔE00 2.342 · #5a4943
- Bear in MindΔE00 2.342 · #5b4a44
- Chateau BrownΔE00 2.465 · #5b4b44
- Dark TruffleΔE00 2.568 · #594d46
11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.