Lemongrass

#999a86

A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.

Hex

#999a86

RGB

153, 154, 134

OKLCh

68.0% 0.029 109.5°

CIELAB (D50)

63.1, -3.1, 10.4

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 7 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
  • It uses only 19% 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 54.9; on black, Lc -46.9. 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.
  • All three dichromacies see it as very nearly the same colour you do: its hue is not the part carrying its identity.

Text on this colour

White text

2.87:1 — fails AA

Black text

7.32:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at7.32:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#777865 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#999a86

protanopia

#9a9a86 · ΔE00 0.5

deuteranopia

#9a9a86 · ΔE00 0.5

tritanopia

#9a9a8a · ΔE00 1.7

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isGreen Fog at ΔE00 0.617: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • Green FogΔE00 0.617 · #989a87
  • Elemental GreenΔE00 0.969 · #969783
  • Into the WildΔE00 1.214 · #999885
  • Concrete JungleΔE00 1.292 · #999988
  • RestorationΔE00 1.772 · #939581
  • Forest CanopyΔE00 1.834 · #969582
  • California SagebrushΔE00 1.915 · #959988
  • Milk ThistleΔE00 2.237 · #9e9b88
  • Deep SeagrassΔE00 2.255 · #959889
  • Thames FogΔE00 2.449 · #949586
  • Water ScrubΔE00 2.472 · #949381
  • Laurel LeafΔE00 2.484 · #969b8b

11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.