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Cellophane Champagne

#b9a487
Notes

Cellophane Champagne (#B9A487) 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 (35°, 26%, 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b9a487
RGB
rgb(185, 164, 135)
HSL
hsl(35, 26%, 63%)
HWB
hwb(35 53% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.9% 0.047 75.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7118 0.6461 0.5428)
HSV
hsv(35, 27%, 73%)
LAB
lab(68.47% 3.13 17.88)
LCH
lch(68.47% 18.15 80.08)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 11%, 27%, 27%)

Etymology

Cellophane
adjective

Modern French cellophane, cellulose-thin-film — coined in 1900 by Jacques-E.-Brandenberger. As a color modifier, cellophane implies a pale-and-clear-and-thin-film quality, the pale color of Mid-Century-Modern clear-and-thin cellulose-acetate cellophane-wrapping translucent-film surface. Sits at the pale-and-thin end of the grid, parallel to glassine and tissue in usage.

Champagne
noun

The pale, slightly amber yellow of dry sparkling wine from the Champagne region of northern France — a color produced by long contact with the lees in the bottle, regardless of grape source. The color refers to the wine in a clean flute: a soft, faintly golden yellow-tan with the optical lightness of a clear liquid. Lighter than honey, warmer than cream, with the celebratory weight of a French appellation that's been protected since 1936.

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.

#b9a487
Original
#aca485
Protanopia
#b2a988
Deuteranopia
#c29e9c
Tritanopia
#a6a6a6
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
2.41:1
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
8.72:1

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
##B9A487
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7118 0.6461 0.5428)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.047

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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