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Authoritative Anise Hibiscus

#bd415e
Notes

Authoritative Anise Hibiscus (#BD415E) is a true red with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (346°, 49%, 50%) 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 teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#bd415e
RGB
rgb(189, 65, 94)
HSL
hsl(346, 49%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(346 25% 26%)
OKLCH
oklch(55.6% 0.160 9.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6857 0.2892 0.3726)
HSV
hsv(346, 66%, 74%)
LAB
lab(46.19% 51.86 10.67)
LCH
lch(46.19% 52.95 11.63)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 66%, 50%, 26%)

Etymology

Authoritative
adjective

Latin auctōritāt-, authority — adjectival suffix -ive. As a color modifier, authoritative implies a saturated-and-formal-imperative quality where the hue carries decisional weight and institutional credibility. Sits at the bold-and-authoritative end of the grid, parallel to commanding and magisterial in usage.

Anise
modifier

Latin anīsum, sweet-licorice-seed. As a color modifier, anise implies a sweet-licorice-and-Mediterranean-aniseed quality, the visual register of Sicilian-and-Provençal-anise hand-sweet-licorice-and-Mediterranean-aniseed Sicilian-and-Provençal-anise-and-Pernod-Ricard anise-and-sweet-licorice surfaces under Sicilian-and-Provençal-anise-and-Pernod-Ricard Marseille-and-Sicily-and-Pastis Mediterranean-licorice-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to clove and caraway in usage.

Hibiscus
noun

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis — the showy mallow of Pacific gardens, the Hawaiian state flower, the source of the deep red sorrel tea sold across West Africa as bissap. The color refers to a fully open hibiscus petal at midday: a hot, slightly magenta red with the velvet texture of a single-day bloom. By evening the same flower has wilted; by morning it's gone.

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.

#bd415e
Original
#5d5e5f
Protanopia
#7e775b
Deuteranopia
#ce2d4c
Tritanopia
#5d5d5d
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).
AAon White
5.15:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
4.08:1

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
##BD415E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6857 0.2892 0.3726)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.160

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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