Twinkling Tanager
Twinkling Tanager (#E86A95) is a true red 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 (340°, 73%, 66%) 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.
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.
The genus Piranga — particularly P. olivacea, the scarlet tanager of North American summer forests, whose breeding-season males are vivid red with black wings. The color refers to a male scarlet tanager at full breeding plumage: a saturated, slightly cool bright red with the matte finish of carotenoid-pigmented feathers. Brighter than cardinal, warmer than crimson.
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.