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Buttoned Vanilla

#f6edb5
Notes

Buttoned Vanilla (#F6EDB5) is a soft amber with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (52°, 78%, 84%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#f6edb5
RGB
rgb(246, 237, 181)
HSL
hsl(52, 78%, 84%)
HWB
hwb(52 71% 4%)
OKLCH
oklch(94.0% 0.073 100.0)
HSV
hsv(52, 26%, 96%)
LAB
lab(93.23% -5.47 28.29)
LCH
lch(93.23% 28.82 100.93)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 4%, 26%, 4%)

Etymology

Buttoned
adjective

Old French bouton, button — past-participle of button. As a color modifier, buttoned implies a clear-and-fastened-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-attire fully-fastened-and-formally-dressed gentleman's-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to trim and pressed in usage.

Vanilla
noun

Vanilla planifolia, the climbing orchid native to Mexico whose cured seed pods yield the world's second-most-expensive spice (after saffron). The color vanilla refers to the pale yellow-cream of a fresh vanilla cream filling: a soft, very pale slightly warm off-white with the matte finish of egg-and-cream emulsion. Warmer than cream, cooler than honey.

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

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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.

#f6edb5
Original
#f8e9b1
Protanopia
#fbedb7
Deuteranopia
#ffe5de
Tritanopia
#ebebeb
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
1.19:1
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
17.70:1

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