Muted Mauve
#b3a9a3
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
#b3a9a3
RGB
179, 169, 163
OKLCh
74.2% 0.014 53.3°
CIELAB (D50)
70.0, 2.9, 4.5
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 9 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 8% 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 45.4; on black, Lc -56.7. 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 5.6 and 6.0 and 16.4 — no red cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.30:1 — fails AA
Black text
9.12:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at9.12:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#7e756f is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#b3a9a3
protanopia
#aaaaa3 · ΔE00 5.6
deuteranopia
#acaca3 · ΔE00 6.0
tritanopia
#aeae7d · ΔE00 16.4
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isAura at ΔE00 0.589: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- AuraΔE00 0.589 · #b2a8a1
- Cement GreigeΔE00 0.746 · #b5aba4
- Matte GreyΔE00 1.546 · #b4a8a4
- Autumn GreyΔE00 1.636 · #b2aba7
- TaupedoΔE00 1.803 · #baaea8
- Riveter RoseΔE00 1.813 · #b7a9a2
- Slate PebbleΔE00 1.867 · #b4ada9
- Warm PewterΔE00 1.954 · #b4ada6
- Ashen GreyΔE00 1.972 · #b2a79d
- BarrenΔE00 2.014 · #b9aba3
- TimberwolfΔE00 2.124 · #b4aca3
- DoveΔE00 2.211 · #b3ada7
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.