Grey Sheep
#baaaaa
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
#baaaaa
RGB
186, 170, 170
OKLCh
75.2% 0.018 17.6°
CIELAB (D50)
71.0, 6.0, 2.2
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 8 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
- It uses only 12% 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 43.9; on black, Lc -58.2. 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 8.0 and 8.9 and 25.1 — no red cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.23:1 — fails AA
Black text
9.42:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at9.42:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#827373 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
#baaaaa
protanopia
#acacaa · ΔE00 8.0
deuteranopia
#afafaa · ΔE00 8.9
tritanopia
#b2b266 · ΔE00 25.1
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isRelaxed Rhino at ΔE00 0.413: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Relaxed RhinoΔE00 0.413 · #bbaaaa
- Object of DesireΔE00 0.754 · #b7a8a8
- Aniline MauveΔE00 1.242 · #b9abad
- Winter CocoaΔE00 1.459 · #baaaa7
- Fashion MauveΔE00 1.475 · #b5a8a8
- Ramadi GreyΔE00 1.648 · #b7a9ac
- MoireΔE00 1.76 · #beadb0
- Cool LavenderΔE00 1.949 · #b3a6a5
- Black ShadowsΔE00 2.017 · #bfafb2
- Centennial RoseΔE00 2.145 · #b3a7a6
- Heather BayΔE00 2.187 · #b8acaf
- Tea Blossom PinkΔE00 2.208 · #b5a9ac
12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.