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Snowy Bourbon

#ae9e8e
Notes

Snowy Bourbon (#AE9E8E) is a true orange 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 (30°, 16%, 62%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#ae9e8e
RGB
rgb(174, 158, 142)
HSL
hsl(30, 16%, 62%)
HWB
hwb(30 56% 32%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.9% 0.030 67.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6718 0.6218 0.5641)
HSV
hsv(30, 18%, 68%)
LAB
lab(66.06% 3.17 10.49)
LCH
lch(66.06% 10.95 73.19)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 9%, 18%, 32%)

Etymology

Snowy
adjective

An adjectival form of snow — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues with the optical brightness of fresh snow. Snowy white, snowy pink: very low saturation combined with high lightness and a slight cool shift. Sits at the pale-bucket alongside iced and frosted.

Bourbon
noun

American corn-based whiskey — distilled and aged in new charred-oak barrels under U.S. federal regulation. The charring gives bourbon its characteristically saturated warm brown color. The color refers to a 10-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon: a saturated, slightly red-shifted warm brown with the optical depth of new-oak-aged spirit.

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.

#ae9e8e
Original
#a49e8d
Protanopia
#a7a28e
Deuteranopia
#b49a99
Tritanopia
#a0a0a0
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
2.60:1
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
8.08:1

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
##AE9E8E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6718 0.6218 0.5641)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.030

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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