Glistening Saffron
Glistening Saffron (#FA9B59) is a true 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 (25°, 94%, 66%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid 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 azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English glisnian, to glisten — present-participle of glisten, sharing root with German glitzern. As a color modifier, glistening implies a saturated-and-wet-or-polished-reflective quality, the bright color of fresh-rain-and-polished-silver surface-reflection. Sits at the bright-and-reflective end of the grid, parallel to shimmering and gleaming in usage.
The dried stigmas of Crocus sativus, harvested by hand from autumn-flowering corms — about 150 flowers yield a single gram of finished spice. Cultivated in Iran, Kashmir, and Spain since antiquity, saffron has dyed Buddhist robes, perfumed Persian rice, and tinted Renaissance paintings. The color is the deep red-orange of fresh threads in hot water: warmer than amber, brighter than rust, with the unmistakable golden-red of the world's most expensive pigment by weight.
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.