Charred Lilac
Charred Lilac (#681E73) is a deep violet with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (292°, 59%, 28%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. 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
The past participle of char, to burn slightly — and a color word for surfaces that have been heat-blackened without fully consuming. Charred implies the carbon-blackened skin of grilled meat, fired wood, or smoke-darkened cathedral stone. Sits in the deep-and-near-black end of the engine's grid, slightly drier than inky and warmer than somber.
Syringa vulgaris, the Balkan-native shrub whose pale purple panicles perfume European gardens in May. The Persian nilak, bluish, became the Arabic līlak and then the Spanish lila before reaching English in the seventeenth century. The color refers to a fresh lilac flower cluster: a soft, slightly muted pale purple with the matte finish of densely packed four-petaled florets. Lighter than mauve, cooler than orchid.
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.