Polished Mikan
Polished Mikan (#913A1F) is a true red 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 (14°, 65%, 35%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary cyan. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.
Citrus unshiu, the Satsuma mandarin — small, easy-peeling, seedless citrus cultivated in southwestern Japan since the sixteenth century. Mikan season (October–February) defines a Japanese winter, with crates of fruit appearing alongside kotatsu under-table heaters. The color refers to a fully ripe mikan: a saturated, slightly red-shifted orange with the satin finish of waxed citrus rind. Brighter than tangerine, warmer than clementine.
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.