colors
Back to gallery

Spotless Mullein

#9a9e65
Notes

Spotless Mullein (#9A9E65) is a true yellow 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 (64°, 23%, 51%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9a9e65
RGB
rgb(154, 158, 101)
HSL
hsl(64, 23%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(64 40% 38%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.2% 0.078 111.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6067 0.6191 0.4219)
HSV
hsv(64, 36%, 62%)
LAB
lab(63.56% -10.63 29.34)
LCH
lch(63.56% 31.20 109.91)
CMYK
cmyk(3%, 0%, 36%, 38%)

Etymology

Spotless
adjective

Old English spott (spot) plus suffix -less. As a color modifier, spotless implies a clear-and-unmarked quality where the hue carries no contaminating speck or stain. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to pristine and unblemished in usage.

Mullein
noun

Verbascum thapsus, the European biennial whose tall yellow flower spikes appear in second-year growth. Used in classical antiquity as a torch (oiled flower spikes) and as a medicinal cough treatment. The color refers to a fresh Mullein flower spike at midsummer: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the matte finish of small five-petaled flowers along a tall stem.

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.

#9a9e65
Original
#a69961
Protanopia
#a69b67
Deuteranopia
#a19890
Tritanopia
#999999
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
2.82:1
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
7.45:1

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
##9A9E65
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6067 0.6191 0.4219)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.078

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.

Related Colors

Canvas