Properly Licorice
Properly Licorice (#180330) is a deep indigo with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (268°, 88%, 10%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary lime. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin proprius, one's own — adverbial-and-adjectival suffix -ly. As a color modifier, properly implies a neutral-and-appropriate-and-correct quality where the hue carries the visual register of conventionally-fitting-and-correct color-decision matched to its functional context. Sits at the neutral-and-traditional end of the grid, parallel to appropriately and suitably in usage.
Glycyrrhiza glabra, the Mediterranean legume whose root yields glycyrrhizin — fifty times sweeter than sugar and the basis of European black licorice candy. The color refers to a fresh stick of black licorice candy: a deep, slightly muted near-black with the slight shine of a starch-bound confection. Warmer than ink, glossier than soot, with the candy-jar weight of a flavor and color identified almost entirely with one root extract.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.
Wide gamut
The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.
Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.