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Blazing Slush Goldenrod

#cba21e
Notes

Blazing Slush Goldenrod (#CBA21E) is a true amber with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (46°, 74%, 46%) 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
#cba21e
RGB
rgb(203, 162, 30)
HSL
hsl(46, 74%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(46 12% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.0% 0.142 89.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7707 0.6415 0.2432)
HSV
hsv(46, 85%, 80%)
LAB
lab(68.48% 3.49 66.72)
LCH
lch(68.48% 66.82 87.01)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 20%, 85%, 20%)

Etymology

Blazing
adjective

Old English blǣse, flame — present-participle of blaze. As a color modifier, blazing implies a saturated-and-bright-flaming quality, the bright color of Yule-log and Bonfire-Night large-flame fire-emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to flaming and scorching in usage.

Slush
modifier

Imitative origin, half-melted-snow. As a color modifier, slush implies a half-melted-snow-and-grey-pavement quality, the visual register of city-pavement-and-thaw-slush hand-half-melted-snow-and-grey-pavement city-pavement-and-thaw-slush-and-Boston-Brooklyn-thaw slush-and-half-melted-snow-and-grey-pavement surfaces under city-pavement-and-thaw-slush-and-Boston-Brooklyn-thaw Boston-and-Brooklyn-and-Edinburgh-thaw urban-thaw-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to thaw and flurry in usage.

Goldenrod
noun

Solidago, the late-summer wildflower of North American meadows whose tall sprays of small yellow flowers signal the end of the growing season. The color refers to the flower head at full bloom: a warm, slightly muted yellow-orange with the matte finish of small clustered florets. Cooler than mustard, deeper than dandelion. The state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska, a pollinator magnet, and the original native dye for early American homespun.

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.

#cba21e
Original
#b6a000
Protanopia
#c0ac28
Deuteranopia
#dd938b
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.41:1
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
8.73:1

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
##CBA21E
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7707 0.6415 0.2432)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.142

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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