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Weathered Hibiscus

#997e80
Notes

Weathered Hibiscus (#997E80) is a true red with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (356°, 12%, 55%) places it in the muted 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.

HEX
#997e80
RGB
rgb(153, 126, 128)
HSL
hsl(356, 12%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(356 49% 40%)
OKLCH
oklch(61.9% 0.033 13.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5830 0.4981 0.5033)
HSV
hsv(356, 18%, 60%)
LAB
lab(55.33% 10.72 2.82)
LCH
lch(55.33% 11.08 14.75)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 18%, 16%, 40%)

Etymology

Weathered
adjective

The past participle of weather, to expose to the elements — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that have been altered by sun, wind, and water. Weathered wood, weathered tin: low saturation combined with the optical irregularity of exposed surfaces. Sits at the hushed-bucket alongside worn and aged.

Hibiscus
noun

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis — the showy mallow of Pacific gardens, the Hawaiian state flower, the source of the deep red sorrel tea sold across West Africa as bissap. The color refers to a fully open hibiscus petal at midday: a hot, slightly magenta red with the velvet texture of a single-day bloom. By evening the same flower has wilted; by morning it's gone.

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.

#997e80
Original
#828280
Protanopia
#888680
Deuteranopia
#9f7c7f
Tritanopia
#848484
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).
AA Largeon White
3.72:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.65:1

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
##997E80
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5830 0.4981 0.5033)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.033

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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