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Tenacious Chive Hibiscus

#aa1e4c
Notes

Tenacious Chive Hibiscus (#AA1E4C) 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 (340°, 70%, 39%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#aa1e4c
RGB
rgb(170, 30, 76)
HSL
hsl(340, 70%, 39%)
HWB
hwb(340 12% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(48.7% 0.175 8.2)
HSV
hsv(340, 82%, 67%)
LAB
lab(37.84% 56.90 9.77)
LCH
lch(37.84% 57.73 9.74)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 82%, 55%, 33%)

Etymology

Tenacious
adjective

Latin tenāx, holding-fast — adjectival suffix -ous. As a color modifier, tenacious implies a saturated-and-clinging quality where the hue grips its substrate with stubborn pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-resilient end of the grid, parallel to unyielding and adamant in usage.

Chive
modifier

Latin cepa, small-onion-grass-herb. As a color modifier, chive implies a slim-grass-onion-and-spring-fresh quality, the visual register of English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive hand-slim-grass-onion-and-spring-fresh English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive-and-fines-herbes chive-and-slim-grass-onion surfaces under English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive-and-fines-herbes Sussex-cottage-and-Lyon-bouchon spring-onion-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to dill and chervil in usage.

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

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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.

#aa1e4c
Original
#45474d
Protanopia
#696349
Deuteranopia
#ba0033
Tritanopia
#3f3f3f
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).
AAAon White
7.00:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
3.00:1

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