Twinkling Brunfelsia
Twinkling Brunfelsia (#CB85E6) is a soft violet with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (283°, 66%, 71%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English twinclian, to wink rapidly — present-participle of twinkle. As a color modifier, twinkling implies a saturated-and-rapid-flicker-reflective quality, the bright color of Christmas-fairy-light and night-sky-star atmospheric-scintillation. Sits at the bright-and-reflective end of the grid, parallel to sparkling and glittering in usage.
South American yesterday-today-tomorrow (Brunfelsia pauciflora) — a Brazilian Atlantic forest native shrub whose flowers open deep-violet on day one, fade to lavender on day two, and white on day three. Brunfelsia color refers to a freshly opened day-one Brunfelsia pauciflora flower: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the velvet finish of fresh five-petaled flat-corolla. Named for Otto Brunfels, German Renaissance botanist.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.