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Ethereal Jiang

#b99ba0
Notes

Ethereal Jiang (#B99BA0) is a true red 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 (350°, 18%, 67%) 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
#b99ba0
RGB
rgb(185, 155, 160)
HSL
hsl(350, 18%, 67%)
HWB
hwb(350 61% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.8% 0.036 6.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7064 0.6122 0.6279)
HSV
hsv(350, 16%, 73%)
LAB
lab(66.75% 11.92 1.54)
LCH
lch(66.75% 12.02 7.38)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 16%, 14%, 27%)

Etymology

Ethereal
adjective

From the Greek aithēr, upper air — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as light, delicate, and otherworldly. Ethereal blue, ethereal pink: very low saturation combined with the optical impression of suspended-in-air translucency. Sits at the pale-bucket alongside ghostly.

Jiang
noun

A deep crimson historical Chinese color — used in the jiangcao (deep-crimson) silks of Tang-dynasty court robes and the lacquer of Han-period burial chambers. The color refers to a jiang-dyed silk in the Forbidden City collection: a deep, slightly cool dark red with the matte finish of multi-bath dyeing. Deeper than hong, cooler than karakurenai.

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.

#b99ba0
Original
#9f9fa0
Protanopia
#a6a49f
Deuteranopia
#bf999d
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.54:1
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
8.26:1

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
##B99BA0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7064 0.6122 0.6279)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.036

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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