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Misted Helichrysum

#a0a68a
Notes

Misted Helichrysum (#A0A68A) 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 (73°, 14%, 60%) 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a0a68a
RGB
rgb(160, 166, 138)
HSL
hsl(73, 14%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(73 54% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.3% 0.040 117.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6317 0.6502 0.5517)
HSV
hsv(73, 17%, 65%)
LAB
lab(66.96% -7.17 13.80)
LCH
lch(66.96% 15.55 117.44)
CMYK
cmyk(4%, 0%, 17%, 35%)

Etymology

Misted
adjective

Old English mist — past-participle of mist. As a color modifier, misted implies a pale-and-vapor-veiled quality, the pale color of Cornish-coast-and-Highland early-morning fog-and-mist atmospheric-veiled surface. Sits at the pale-and-veiled end of the grid, parallel to mistlike and foggy in usage.

Helichrysum
noun

The genus Helichrysum — Mediterranean composite-family plants whose dried yellow flower bracts retain their color for years (also called strawflower). The color refers to dried Helichrysum bracts in a winter bouquet: a soft, slightly muted dry yellow with the matte papery finish of preserved flower.

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.

#a0a68a
Original
#aaa388
Protanopia
#aaa38b
Deuteranopia
#a3a39e
Tritanopia
#a3a3a3
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
2.53:1
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
8.32:1

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
##A0A68A
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6317 0.6502 0.5517)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.040

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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