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Clear Silver

#bbc3ba
Notes

Clear Silver (#BBC3BA) is a pale neutral with a mono character. It's a grayscale value, at home in typography, dividers, and the structural layer beneath stronger colors. Its HSL profile (113°, 7%, 75%) places it in the muted band at a light lightness. It works as a soft page background, card surface, or low-key divider. Avoid it for body text against white. Pair it with almost any saturated accent. It's built to sit underneath or behind stronger colors without fighting them.

HEX
#bbc3ba
RGB
rgb(187, 195, 186)
HSL
hsl(113, 7%, 75%)
HWB
hwb(113 73% 24%)
OKLCH
oklch(80.8% 0.015 142.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7390 0.7637 0.7321)
HSV
hsv(113, 5%, 76%)
LAB
lab(77.96% -4.43 3.56)
LCH
lch(77.96% 5.68 141.18)
CMYK
cmyk(4%, 0%, 5%, 24%)

Etymology

Clear
adjective

From the Latin clarus, bright, distinct — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues without haze or mixing. Clear blue sky, clear green water: the implication is moderate saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clean and true.

Silver
noun

Element Ag, atomic number 47 — the most reflective metal in the visible spectrum, used since antiquity for coinage, mirrors, and tableware. The color refers to freshly polished sterling silver: a clean, slightly cool bright silver with the high specular shine of a polished noble metal. Cooler than sterling, warmer than platinum.

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.

#bbc3ba
Original
#c4c1ba
Protanopia
#c2c0ba
Deuteranopia
#bbc2c0
Tritanopia
#c1c1c1
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
1.81:1
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
11.63:1

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
##BBC3BA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7390 0.7637 0.7321)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.015

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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