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Sure Marzipan

#bca133
Notes

Sure Marzipan (#BCA133) 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 (48°, 57%, 47%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#bca133
RGB
rgb(188, 161, 51)
HSL
hsl(48, 57%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(48 20% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.4% 0.128 94.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7199 0.6353 0.2818)
HSV
hsv(48, 73%, 74%)
LAB
lab(66.84% -1.85 57.80)
LCH
lch(66.84% 57.83 91.83)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 14%, 73%, 26%)

Etymology

Sure
adjective

Old French seur, certain — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as confident and stable. Sure red, sure blue: moderate saturation combined with optical commitment. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside steady and true.

Marzipan
noun

The almond-and-sugar paste used in European confectionery since at least the medieval period — central to Lübeck's confectionery tradition and the Italian frutta martorana of Sicilian Easter. The color refers to fresh marzipan paste: a soft, slightly warm pale yellow with the matte finish of almond-flour-and-sugar paste.

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.

#bca133
Original
#b29e22
Protanopia
#b9a639
Deuteranopia
#cb948b
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.53:1
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
8.28:1

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
##BCA133
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7199 0.6353 0.2818)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.128

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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