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Lightened quartz

#b39ba5
Notes

Lightened quartz (#B39BA5) is a true magenta 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 (335°, 14%, 65%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b39ba5
RGB
rgb(179, 155, 165)
HSL
hsl(335, 14%, 65%)
HWB
hwb(335 61% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.4% 0.031 350.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6865 0.6113 0.6453)
HSV
hsv(335, 13%, 70%)
LAB
lab(66.32% 10.58 -1.94)
LCH
lch(66.32% 10.75 349.62)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 13%, 8%, 30%)

Etymology

Lightened
adjective

Old English lēoht, light — past-participle of lighten. As a color modifier, lightened implies a pale-and-tone-raised-and-lightened quality, the pale color of Mid-Century-Modern pale-and-tone-raised interior-decoration paint-and-textile surface. Sits at the pale-and-light end of the grid, parallel to whitened and bleached in usage.

quartz
noun

Silicon dioxide — the most abundant single mineral on Earth's continental crust, occurring as everything from beach sand to gem-grade rock crystal. Quartz as a color refers to a polished pale-gray quartz crystal: a soft, very pale slightly cool gray with the high specular shine of a translucent silicate. Cooler than pearl, warmer than mist.

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.

#b39ba5
Original
#9d9fa5
Protanopia
#a2a3a4
Deuteranopia
#b79a9e
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.58:1
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
8.15:1

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
##B39BA5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6865 0.6113 0.6453)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.031

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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