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Dreamy Chambray

#98b9ce
Notes

Dreamy Chambray (#98B9CE) is a true azure 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 (203°, 36%, 70%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#98b9ce
RGB
rgb(152, 185, 206)
HSL
hsl(203, 36%, 70%)
HWB
hwb(203 60% 19%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.8% 0.047 236.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6216 0.7217 0.7992)
HSV
hsv(203, 26%, 81%)
LAB
lab(73.43% -6.37 -14.24)
LCH
lch(73.43% 15.60 245.91)
CMYK
cmyk(26%, 10%, 0%, 19%)

Etymology

Dreamy
adjective

An adjectival form of dream — used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as soft and slightly unreal. Dreamy lavender, dreamy peach: low saturation combined with optical softness and a slight romanticism. Sits at the pale-bucket alongside misty.

Chambray
noun

A lightweight cotton fabric woven with a colored warp and white weft — producing a soft chambray-blue characteristic of summer workwear and cambric dressmaking. The color refers to a freshly woven chambray shirt before any wash: a soft, slightly muted deep blue with the satin finish of fine cotton-and-indigo weave.

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 explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

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.

#98b9ce
Original
#b0b8cf
Protanopia
#a8b2ce
Deuteranopia
#88bfc0
Tritanopia
#b4b4b4
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

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.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
2.07:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
10.17:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

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.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##98B9CE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6216 0.7217 0.7992)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.047

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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