Wizard’s Brew

#a090b8

A violet that is nearly neutral — the hue shows only against a true grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.

Hex

#a090b8

RGB

160, 144, 184

OKLCh

68.1% 0.061 303.1°

CIELAB (D50)

62.3, 12.1, -18.7

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 3 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
  • It uses only 29% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
  • As text on white it measures APCA Lc 55.7; on black, Lc -46.1. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
  • Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 5.9 and 6.0 and 24.5 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

2.93:1 — fails AA

Black text

7.18:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at7.18:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#7f7096 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#a090b8

protanopia

#9292b8 · ΔE00 5.9

deuteranopia

#9595b8 · ΔE00 6.0

tritanopia

#98988c · ΔE00 24.5

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isYolanda at ΔE00 0.554: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • YolandaΔE00 0.554 · #a291ba
  • Lush MauveΔE00 0.636 · #a091b7
  • Chive FlowerΔE00 1.797 · #a193bf
  • Lilac BreezeΔE00 2.317 · #a590c0
  • Purple AgateΔE00 2.366 · #988eb4
  • Greek LavenderΔE00 2.37 · #9b8fb0
  • Enchanted LilacΔE00 2.375 · #a893c1
  • KismetΔE00 2.594 · #a18ab7
  • Ode to PurpleΔE00 2.605 · #a798c2
  • Flirty PinkΔE00 2.905 · #9e88b1
  • BloomsberryΔE00 2.995 · #a598c4
  • Saffron Blossom MauveΔE00 3.153 · #9c8aab

11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.