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Plain Flame

#e3b894
Notes

Plain Flame (#E3B894) is a soft 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 (27°, 59%, 74%) 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#e3b894
RGB
rgb(227, 184, 148)
HSL
hsl(27, 59%, 74%)
HWB
hwb(27 58% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(81.2% 0.069 61.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.8634 0.7280 0.5991)
HSV
hsv(27, 35%, 89%)
LAB
lab(77.73% 10.54 24.15)
LCH
lch(77.73% 26.35 66.43)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 19%, 35%, 11%)

Etymology

Plain
adjective

Latin planus, flat, level — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as undecorated and direct. Plain white, plain blue: moderate saturation, no shift, no surface effect. Sits in the crisp-bucket center, with the implication of restraint rather than absence.

Flame
noun

The luminous combustion zone of a fire — the visible portion of incandescent gas, where temperature determines color. The orange of a wood flame sits around 1,100°C; hotter and it shifts to yellow, hotter still to white. The color is a saturated, slightly red orange with the suggestion of internal motion. Hotter than ember, brighter than rust, alive in a way pigment never quite captures.

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.

#e3b894
Original
#c5bb92
Protanopia
#cfc495
Deuteranopia
#f0afae
Tritanopia
#bfbfbf
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
1.82:1
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
11.55:1

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
##E3B894
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.8634 0.7280 0.5991)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.069

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.

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