Cosmic
#b8b9cb
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
#b8b9cb
RGB
184, 185, 203
OKLCh
79.1% 0.025 283.3°
CIELAB (D50)
75.5, 2.3, -9.2
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 4 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 23% 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 37.2; on black, Lc -65.3. 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
1.94:1 — fails AA
Black text
10.84:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at10.84:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#757686 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
#b8b9cb
protanopia
#b9b9cb · ΔE00 0.5
deuteranopia
#b9b9cb · ΔE00 0.5
tritanopia
#b9b9ce · ΔE00 1.3
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isWinter Dusk at ΔE00 0.699: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Winter DuskΔE00 0.699 · #b8b8cb
- A Stitch in TimeΔE00 0.942 · #babccf
- Soul SisterΔE00 1.553 · #b2b5c8
- Filtered LightΔE00 1.895 · #b1b2c4
- Fading SunsetΔE00 2.001 · #b3b3c2
- Blue HazeΔE00 2.237 · #bdbace
- Timeless LilacΔE00 2.251 · #afb2c4
- Silver DaggerΔE00 2.293 · #c1c1d1
- Noble PurpleΔE00 2.365 · #afb1c5
- Lavender HonourΔE00 2.482 · #c0c2d2
- SilverberryΔE00 2.551 · #bebbc9
- Violet VisionΔE00 2.554 · #b7bdd1
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.