Vitreous Sindoor
Vitreous Sindoor (#9F4445) is a true red with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (359°, 40%, 45%) 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 vitreus, glass-like — derived from vitrum (glass). As a color modifier, vitreous implies a clear-and-glassy quality where the hue carries the optical clarity of polished crown-glass. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to pellucid and crystalline in usage.
The vermillion powder applied to the parted hair of married Hindu women — traditionally derived from cinnabar and turmeric, more recently from synthetic dyes. The color refers to fresh sindoor in a wedding ceremony: a saturated, slightly orange-shifted bright red with the powdery finish of mineral pigment. Brighter than vermillion, warmer than coral, with the social weight of a color tied to a single life-stage marker.
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.