colors
Back to gallery

Bleached Sunrise

#bf9e8b
Notes

Bleached Sunrise (#BF9E8B) is a true orange 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 (22°, 29%, 65%) 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
#bf9e8b
RGB
rgb(191, 158, 139)
HSL
hsl(22, 29%, 65%)
HWB
hwb(22 55% 25%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.4% 0.048 51.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7282 0.6245 0.5552)
HSV
hsv(22, 27%, 75%)
LAB
lab(67.57% 9.32 14.50)
LCH
lch(67.57% 17.24 57.28)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 17%, 27%, 25%)

Etymology

Bleached
adjective

The past participle of bleach, to whiten by chemical or solar action. Used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that have lost their original saturation through chemical treatment or sun exposure. Bleached wood, bleached linen: low saturation combined with high lightness. Sits at the pale-bucket alongside faded.

Sunrise
noun

The atmospheric color at the moment the sun crosses the horizon at dawn — the same atmospheric optics as sunset but with cooler, slightly cleaner air at lower morning temperature. The color refers to the eastern horizon at sunrise on a clear summer morning: a saturated, slightly cool orange with the optical brightness of forward-scattered solar light. Cooler than sunset.

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.

#bf9e8b
Original
#a7a18a
Protanopia
#afa78b
Deuteranopia
#c99899
Tritanopia
#a4a4a4
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
2.48:1
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
8.48:1

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
##BF9E8B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7282 0.6245 0.5552)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.048

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.

Related Colors

Canvas