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Delicate Mayonnaise

#b4b38f
Notes

Delicate Mayonnaise (#B4B38F) 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 (58°, 20%, 63%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b4b38f
RGB
rgb(180, 179, 143)
HSL
hsl(58, 20%, 63%)
HWB
hwb(58 56% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.8% 0.049 106.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7052 0.7021 0.5754)
HSV
hsv(58, 21%, 71%)
LAB
lab(72.18% -5.70 18.57)
LCH
lch(72.18% 19.42 107.07)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 1%, 21%, 29%)

Etymology

Delicate
adjective

Latin dēlicātus, charming / refined. As a color modifier, delicate implies a pale-and-finely-detailed-and-careful quality where the hue carries the visual register of Wedgwood-and-Sèvres finely-detailed-and-carefully-painted porcelain-and-ceramic surface. Sits at the pale-and-delicate end of the grid, parallel to fragile and fine in usage.

Mayonnaise
noun

The egg-yolk-and-oil emulsion essential to French sauces (aïoli, rémoulade), American sandwiches, and Japanese Kewpie cuisine. The color refers to fresh-whisked mayonnaise as it sits in a glass jar, slightly mounded from the spoon: a soft, slightly warm pale yellow with the satin finish of high-fat emulsion. Lighter than yolk, warmer than buttermilk.

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.

#b4b38f
Original
#b9b08d
Protanopia
#bab290
Deuteranopia
#baaea9
Tritanopia
#b1b1b1
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
2.15:1
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
9.79:1

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
##B4B38F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7052 0.7021 0.5754)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.049

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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