Photo in the color Powder blue (web)
Pictured: Powder blue (web)
rgb(176, 224, 230)
#B0E0E6

Powder Blue #B0E0E6 RGB Color Code

CSS keyword powderblue.

Powder Blue (#B0E0E6) is a muted, light cyan. In RGB it is made of 69% red, 88% green and 90% blue (R 176, G 224, B 230). The blue channel is the strongest. In HSL it has a hue of 187°, 52% saturation and 80% lightness. Its relative luminance is 0.683, so black text is easier to read on top of it. For print, a rough CMYK match is 23% cyan, 3% magenta, 0% yellow and 10% black. Check it against your printer's ICC profile before you print. It is a cool color. It goes well with warm oranges and reds for contrast. For a calm, matching look, use nearby cool tones.

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Powder Blue color codes

#B0E0E6 in every common color format. Click a value to copy it.

FormatValueNotesCopy
HEX #B0E0E6 Valid CSS
CSS name powderblue Valid CSS
RGB rgb(176, 224, 230) Valid CSS
HSL hsl(187, 52%, 80%) Valid CSS
HSV / HSB hsv(187, 23%, 90%) Not a CSS format
HWB hwb(187 69% 10%) Valid CSS
CMYK cmyk(23%, 3%, 0%, 10%) Approximate (no ICC profile)
OKLCH oklch(87.51% 0.0502 205.73) Valid CSS
OKLab oklab(87.51% -0.0452 -0.0218) Valid CSS
CIELAB lab(85.95% -15.07 -8.31) D50, as in CSS
CIELCH lch(85.95% 17.21 208.88) Valid CSS
Display P3 color(display-p3 0.7283 0.873 0.8972) Valid CSS
XYZ (D65) color(xyz-d65 0.5884 0.6825 0.8494) Valid CSS
Decimal 11591910 Integer (0xRRGGBB)

CMYK here is a rough screen match without an ICC profile. See CMYK and print. Relative luminance: 0.6825. Nearest web-safe color: #99CCFF.

Mix Powder Blue with other colors

See what #B0E0E6 makes with red paint, under a green light, printed with cyan ink and in a digital blend with blue. Click a picture to change the colors and amounts in the color mixer.

PaintPowder Blue and red paintOpen in the color mixer
LightPowder Blue and green lightOpen in the color mixer
PrintPowder Blue and cyan inkOpen in the color mixer
DigitalPowder Blue blended with blueOpen in the color mixer

Use Powder Blue in your code

Ready to paste into CSS, Sass, Tailwind, iOS, Android and Flutter. Click the icon to copy a line.

WhereCodeCopy
CSS variable--powder-blue: #B0E0E6;
Sass variable$powder-blue: #B0E0E6;
Tailwind CSS v4@theme { --color-powder-blue: #B0E0E6; }
Tailwind CSS v3 configcolors: { 'powder-blue': '#B0E0E6' }
SwiftUIColor(red: 0.69, green: 0.878, blue: 0.902)
UIKitUIColor(red: 0.69, green: 0.878, blue: 0.902, alpha: 1)
Android XML<color name="powder_blue">#FFB0E0E6</color>
Flutter and Jetpack ComposeColor(0xFFB0E0E6)

Accessibility and contrast

Black text works best on #B0E0E6 (14.65:1, AAA). Here is how #B0E0E6 does as a text color:

Large heading text
Body text at 16px. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
1.43:1 on white
APCA Lc 21
Fails AATry #517E84
Large heading text
Body text at 16px. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
14.65:1 on black
APCA Lc -83
AAA

Check this color against any background in the contrast checker. WCAG ratios and APCA Lc values measure different things, so one can't stand in for the other. Learn more.

How people with color blindness see Powder Blue

#B0E0E6 next to its complement and its two triadic colors, as seen with each type of color blindness.

  • Normal visionhow most people see it
  • Protanopiano red cones, about 1% of men
  • Deuteranopiano green cones, the most common type
  • Tritanopiano blue cones, very rare
  • Achromatopsiano color at all, very rare

With deuteranopia, #B0E0E6 and #E6B6B0 look much alike. With deuteranopia, #B0E0E6 and #E6B0E0 look much alike. Don't use these colors alone to tell things apart, for example in a chart. Add labels, patterns or a difference in lightness. Try your own colors in the color blindness simulator.

About the color Powder Blue

It started as a real powder

The first powder blue was an actual powder. In the 1650s, people ground smalt, a blue cobalt glass, into a fine dust. It was used in laundry and for dyeing cloth. Smalt is a deep blue, so that early powder blue was far darker than the color known by the name today.

Powder blue shows up as an English color name in 1774, but nobody is sure what shade it meant then. It may have been a blue gray. The pale sense of the name took hold from 1894, according to the Wikipedia article on powder blue.

The web version leans toward green

The code #B0E0E6 is the X11 and CSS color powderblue. It has more green in it than the name suggests, and the ISCC-NBS system calls it a very light bluish green. Paint standards disagree. British Standard 20D41 gives powder blue as #9EB9D4, a grayer shade that is truly blue.

Compare it with pale turquoise and light blue, two close CSS colors. Powder blue is far too light for white text, at only 1.43 to 1. Black text on it reaches 14.65 to 1.

Powder Blue in a user interface

A sample app screen with #B0E0E6 as the main color, on a light and a dark theme.

Light theme

Dark theme

Buttons and bars use #B0E0E6 as it is. On the light theme, #B0E0E6 is too hard to read as text (1.43:1), so links, the badge and outline text use #517E84 there (4.50:1). Build a full color scheme around it in the UI color preview.

Color harmonies for Powder Blue

These schemes turn the hue of #B0E0E6 around the color wheel. Each swatch links to its own page.

Complementary

Two colors on opposite sides of the wheel. This gives the most contrast.

Open palette
this#B0E0E6#E6B6B0

Analogous

Hues that sit next to each other and look good together.

Open palette
#B0E6D1this#B0E0E6#B0C5E6

Triadic

Three hues spaced evenly around the wheel. Bold, but still balanced.

Open palette
this#B0E0E6#E6B0E0#E0E6B0

Split complementary

A base color plus the two hues on each side of its opposite. Strong contrast that clashes less.

Open palette
this#B0E0E6#E6B0C5#E6D1B0

Tetradic (rectangle)

Two pairs of opposite colors. Let one color lead and use the others less.

Open palette
this#B0E0E6#B6B0E6#E6B6B0#E0E6B0

Square

Four hues 90° apart, spread evenly around the wheel.

Open palette
this#B0E0E6#D1B0E6#E6B6B0#C5E6B0

Monochromatic

One hue at different levels of lightness and saturation.

Open palette
#19484D#2C828C#47B7C5#86CFD9#C5E8ED

Gradients with Powder Blue

Four CSS gradients made from #B0E0E6. Copy the code, or open one in the gradient generator to change it.

Soft tint

From a pale tint to the full color.

background: linear-gradient(90deg, #EFF9FA, #B0E0E6);

Edit in the gradient generator

Deep shade

The color fading into a dark shade.

background: linear-gradient(180deg, #B0E0E6, #2E3E40);

Edit in the gradient generator

Analogous

Its two neighbors on the color wheel.

background: linear-gradient(135deg, #B0E6D1, #B0E0E6, #B0C5E6);

Edit in the gradient generator

Triadic

A bold blend with a triadic color, through a clean middle.

background: linear-gradient(135deg, #B0E0E6, #CFC9E3, #E6B0E0);

Edit in the gradient generator

Shades, tints and tones of Powder Blue

Shades are darker, tints are lighter and tones are grayer. We make them in OKLCH so the steps look even. Hover a step to see its code, or click it to open it.

Design system scale (50 to 950)

Powder Blue sits at step 200. Export the full scale as CSS variables or Tailwind tokens from the picker.

  1. 50
    EAFAFD
  2. 100
    DCF2F4
  3. 200
    B0E0E6
  4. 300
    A3C9CE
  5. 400
    80ACB2
  6. 500
    628F95
  7. 600
    48747A
  8. 700
    355D62
  9. 800
    27494D
  10. 900
    1C3538
  11. 950
    121F21

Closest RAL, Tailwind and CSS colors

The nearest match to #B0E0E6 in three color systems that designers and builders use.

RAL ClassicRAL 9018 Papyrus white#CFD3CD, very close (ΔE 5.0)Tailwind CSSsky-200 #BAE6FD, very close (ΔE 3.5)CSS color namespowderblue #B0E0E6, exact match (ΔE 0.0)

ΔE is the distance in OKLab: under 2 is hard to see, over 10 is a clearly different color. Browse all RAL colors, the Tailwind palette or the 148 CSS color names. RAL values on screens are only a guide, so check a real color chart before you order paint.

The named colors that look closest to this one (ΔE in OKLab). Browse all shades of cyan or search the color library.