colors
Back to gallery

Trustworthy Apatite

#b8a373
Notes

Trustworthy Apatite (#B8A373) 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 (42°, 33%, 59%) 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
#b8a373
RGB
rgb(184, 163, 115)
HSL
hsl(42, 33%, 59%)
HWB
hwb(42 45% 28%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.2% 0.069 87.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7078 0.6422 0.4741)
HSV
hsv(42, 38%, 72%)
LAB
lab(67.74% 0.67 27.77)
LCH
lch(67.74% 27.78 88.62)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 11%, 38%, 28%)

Etymology

Trustworthy
adjective

Old English trēow, trust — adjectival suffix -worthy. As a color modifier, trustworthy implies a clear-and-reliable-and-honest quality where the hue carries the visual register of confidence-deserving-and-faithful-performance design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to reliable and dependable 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.

#b8a373
Original
#aea270
Protanopia
#b3a774
Deuteranopia
#c39b97
Tritanopia
#a4a4a4
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
2.46:1
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
8.52:1

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
##B8A373
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7078 0.6422 0.4741)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.069

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.

Related Colors

Canvas