Wintry Chiffon
Wintry Chiffon (#F4FCE1) is a soft lime with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (78°, 82%, 94%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English winter, winter — adjectival suffix -y. As a color modifier, wintry implies a pale-and-cool-and-clear quality, the pale color of Northeast-American mid-winter clear-sky-and-fresh-snow-cover atmospheric-and-landscape condition. Sits at the pale-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to frosty and icy in usage.
The lightweight French fabric — typically silk or rayon — used in evening gowns, bridal veils, and the gâteau au chiffon (chiffon cake). Chiffon yellow refers to a yellow silk chiffon: a soft, slightly cool pale yellow with the satin finish of lightweight dyed silk. Lighter than primrose.
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.