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Refreshing Apatite

#b59151
Notes

Refreshing Apatite (#B59151) is a true amber 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 (38°, 40%, 51%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b59151
RGB
rgb(181, 145, 81)
HSL
hsl(38, 40%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(38 32% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.7% 0.093 80.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6874 0.5740 0.3547)
HSV
hsv(38, 55%, 71%)
LAB
lab(62.23% 5.75 38.75)
LCH
lch(62.23% 39.18 81.56)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 20%, 55%, 29%)

Etymology

Refreshing
adjective

Old French refreschir, to make fresh again — present-participle of refresh. As a color modifier, refreshing implies a clear-and-cool-and-revitalizing quality, the crisp color of Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air-and-cool-water revitalization. Sits at the crisp-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fresh and bracing in usage.

Apatite
noun

A calcium phosphate mineral — known to mineralogists as the source rock for fertilizer and to gem traders as a yellow-to-green-to-blue gem. The yellow variety is mined principally in Madagascar and Brazil. The color refers to a faceted yellow apatite: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the gem's signature internal warmth.

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.

#b59151
Original
#a0914b
Protanopia
#a99a53
Deuteranopia
#c38682
Tritanopia
#949494
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
2.94:1
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
7.13:1

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
##B59151
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6874 0.5740 0.3547)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.093

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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