Pure Ether Rose
Pure Ether Rose (#B20264) is a true magenta with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (327°, 98%, 35%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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.
Etymology
Latin purus, clean, unmixed — applied to color since antiquity for hues that contain only one pigment without dilution by white, black, or another color. Pure red is the textbook ideal: high saturation, mid lightness, no shift. Sits at the bold-bucket center, parallel to true and strong.
Greek αἰθήρ, upper-air-or-quintessence. As a color modifier, ether implies a luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air quality, the visual register of Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-ether hand-luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-and-Newtonian ether-and-luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air surfaces under Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-and-Newtonian celestial-spheres-and-natural-philosophy upper-air-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to plasma and nebula in usage.
The Latin rosa, the Greek rhodon, the Persian gul — every European language has a different name for the same flower and the same color. Rose covers the spectrum from blush to fuchsia depending on the cultivar, but in pigment shorthand it means a cool, slightly bluish red — the inside of a damask petal, the dye that washes out of madder root.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
This color is chromatic enough that authoring it as P3 native (instead of clamping to sRGB) gives a perceptibly more saturated render on wide-gamut displays — modern Macs, iPhones, iPads, and most recent OLED laptops.