Smoke Color Codes

Smoke is a light neutral grey with the hex code #BFC8C3, RGB values of 191, 200, 195 and an HSL value of hsl(147, 8%, 77%).

HEX	#BFC8C3
RGB	191, 200, 195
HSL	hsl(147, 8%, 77%)
HSV	147°, 5%, 78%
CMYK	5%, 0%, 3%, 22%
LAB	79.80, -4.01, 1.43
CIELCHuv	79.80, 5.54, 149.27°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 5445 C ΔE 3.2 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: silver ΔE 4.7

Community source color-name-list, community color-name index

Smoke Color Hex Code

The Smoke color hex code is #BFC8C3. Those six digits are three pairs, BF for red, C8 for green and C3 for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#BFC8C3

Smoke Color RGB Code

The Smoke RGB code is rgb(191, 200, 195). Green carries the most light at 200 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(191, 200, 195)

Smoke Color HSV Code

The Smoke HSV code is 147°, 5%, 78%. Read it as a hue of 147 degrees, 5% saturation and 78% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

147°, 5%, 78%

Smoke Color CIELChuv Code

The Smoke CIELCHuv code is 79.80, 5.54, 149.27°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 80 means light to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 6 is how far it sits from grey.

79.80, 5.54, 149.27°

Tonal scale

What are Smoke Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Smoke Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #BFC8C3. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

Rotate a half turn and you land on #C8BFC4, a light neutral grey. Maximum hue distance, which is what makes a complement read as emphasis rather than decoration. Neither is especially saturated, so this pairing stays calm enough for large areas of both.

Analogous

Step 30 degrees in each direction and you get #C0C8BF and #BFC8C8. Neighbouring hues hold together without effort, which is what makes analogous sets the safe choice for large areas.

Triadic

#C3BFC8 and #C8C3BF complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #C8BFC8 and #C8BFC0. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #C8BFC4, and #BFC0C8 with #C8C8BF. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat the darkest of the four as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

1.71:1

1.71

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Fails	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Fails	n/a

Black background

12.27:1

12.27

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Passes
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

At 1.71:1 against white, Smoke is a fill color rather than a text color. Use it for surfaces, borders and large display type, and set the copy in ink. Text placed on it should be black, which gives 12.27:1. With very little saturation it behaves as a neutral, which makes it a good background or a supporting tone alongside a stronger accent.

Check Smoke against another color →

Color vision

How Smoke looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#C3C3C4

Smoke shifts slightly here. ΔE 4.7

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#C2C2C5

Smoke shifts slightly here. ΔE 5.6

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#BFC5C5

Smoke holds up almost unchanged here. ΔE 3.0

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#C6C6C6

Smoke shifts slightly here. ΔE 4.3

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

Smoke is stable under the common forms of color blindness: to a deuteranope it reads as #C2C2C5, a shift of only ΔE 5.6, which is close to imperceptible. The widest shift is under deuteranopia, at ΔE 5.6. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Smoke in code

:root {
  --smoke: #BFC8C3;
}

.example {
  color: var(--smoke);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'smoke': '#BFC8C3',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let smoke = Color(
    red: 0.749,
    green: 0.784,
    blue: 0.765
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="smoke">#BFC8C3</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const smoke = Color(0xFFBFC8C3);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Smoke Color?

Smoke reads as quiet. It is muted enough to work as a background rather than a signal, and at 8% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 80 it behaves as a neutral color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Smoke Color?

The closest CSS keyword is Silver (#C0C0C0), though it is not a match: Delta-E 4.7 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 5445 C at #C4CCCC. The name Smoke comes from the community color-name index rather than a standards body, so you will meet it under other names elsewhere.

How is Smoke Color Made?

On a screen Smoke is made by additive light: 191 red, 200 green and 195 blue out of 255, with green leading and 191 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 5%, 0%, 3%, 22%. Starting from the pure hue at 147 degrees, Smoke is a tint, so it is that hue with white added.