Nebulous December
#b3b2bf
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#b3b2bf
RGB
179, 178, 191
OKLCh
76.8% 0.018 289.5°
CIELAB (D50)
73.0, 2.2, -6.5
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 7 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 14% 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 40.9; on black, Lc -61.3. 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.
- All three dichromacies see it as very nearly the same colour you do: its hue is not the part carrying its identity.
Text on this colour
White text
2.09:1 — fails AA
Black text
10.04:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at10.04:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#767682 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#b3b2bf
protanopia
#b2b2bf · ΔE00 0.5
deuteranopia
#b2b2bf · ΔE00 0.6
tritanopia
#b2b2bc · ΔE00 1.6
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isVeiled Delight at ΔE00 0.716: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Veiled DelightΔE00 0.716 · #b2b0bd
- Fading SunsetΔE00 0.95 · #b3b3c2
- Coveted GemΔE00 1.149 · #b6b3bf
- Canyon CloudΔE00 1.529 · #aeafbb
- DreamlandΔE00 1.604 · #b5b1bf
- Polar MistΔE00 1.857 · #adafbd
- Glistening GreyΔE00 1.919 · #b1b3be
- Buffed PlumΔE00 2.04 · #aeafb9
- Filtered LightΔE00 2.134 · #b1b2c4
- PantomimeΔE00 2.181 · #adafba
- A Month of SundaysΔE00 2.218 · #b0b2bc
- Love-Struck ChinchillaΔE00 2.242 · #aeaeb7
12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.