Grey Marble
#b9b4b1
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
#b9b4b1
RGB
185, 180, 177
OKLCh
77.3% 0.007 53.4°
CIELAB (D50)
73.7, 1.4, 2.2
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 14 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
- It uses only 5% 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 40.0; on black, Lc -62.3. 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.
- tritanopia shifts it by ΔE00 9.1 — no blue cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.05:1 — fails AA
Black text
10.23:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at10.23:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#7a7673 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
#b9b4b1
protanopia
#b5b5b1 · ΔE00 2.8
deuteranopia
#b5b5b1 · ΔE00 3.0
tritanopia
#b6b6a0 · ΔE00 9.1
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isSmooth Stone at ΔE00 0.788: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Smooth StoneΔE00 0.788 · #bcb6b3
- Clear ConcreteΔE00 0.942 · #bab6b2
- North IslandΔE00 1.011 · #bcb6b4
- Michigan AvenueΔE00 1.064 · #b7b4b1
- Essential GreyΔE00 1.232 · #bcb8b6
- Painted DesertΔE00 1.404 · #beb8b6
- Dusty WarriorΔE00 1.449 · #bab7b3
- Mountain BoulderΔE00 1.562 · #bfb8b5
- Classic CoolΔE00 1.652 · #b7b2ac
- RampartΔE00 1.709 · #bcb7b1
- Winter CalmΔE00 1.738 · #bdb5b3
- Soft BeigeΔE00 1.742 · #b9b5af
11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.