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Pearly Chá

#b9ae96
Notes

Pearly Chá (#B9AE96) 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 (41°, 20%, 66%) 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
#b9ae96
RGB
rgb(185, 174, 150)
HSL
hsl(41, 20%, 66%)
HWB
hwb(41 59% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.4% 0.036 86.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7181 0.6838 0.5984)
HSV
hsv(41, 19%, 73%)
LAB
lab(71.41% -0.07 13.75)
LCH
lch(71.41% 13.75 90.27)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 6%, 19%, 27%)

Etymology

Pearly
adjective

Old French perle, pearl — adjectival suffix -y. As a color modifier, pearly implies a pale-and-iridescent-and-soft quality, the pale color of Akoya-and-South-Sea freshwater-and-saltwater natural-pearl iridescent-aragonite-nacre surface-finish. Sits at the pale-and-soft end of the grid, parallel to waxen and opalescent in usage.

Chá
noun

The Chinese word for tea — used as a color word for the warm brown of brewed tea liquor and the wood of chá-jī (tea tables). The color refers to fresh-brewed Pu-erh tea in a porcelain cup: a soft, slightly cool deep brown with the optical depth of well-fermented tea. Cooler than caramel, drier than mahogany.

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.

#b9ae96
Original
#b4ad95
Protanopia
#b7b097
Deuteranopia
#bfaaa7
Tritanopia
#afafaf
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
2.20:1
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
9.56:1

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
##B9AE96
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7181 0.6838 0.5984)
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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