Smothering Fuchsine
Smothering Fuchsine (#51083C) is a deep magenta 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 (317°, 82%, 17%) 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 green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English smorian, to suffocate — present-participle of smother. As a color modifier, smothering implies a deep-and-overwhelming-and-pressing quality where the hue is dominated by an enveloping darkness. Sits at the deep-and-overwhelming end of the grid, parallel to suffocating with kinetic register.
Synthetic-organic dye class first synthesized in 1859 by François-Emmanuel Verguin from aniline-and-tin-chloride. The dye was named after the fuchsia flower for its deep-magenta hue. Fuchsine color refers to a freshly fuchsine-dyed Lyon silk faille: a saturated, slightly cool deep magenta with the silky luster of synthetic aniline dye. Contemporary with mauveine, solferino, and the Battle of Magenta.
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.