White Smoke

#f5f5f5

A cooler, grayer off-white for clean layouts

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About White Smoke

On my monitor, White Smoke looks like a sheet of printer paper that's been sitting under soft light. It has that gentle gray hush, but it never goes fully invisible the way does against pure white.

Compared to Dr. White, you'll notice it's a touch less "clinical blank." The undertone reads slightly more neutral, not quite as cool or deliberate, so it shows up with a calm certainty even when the surrounding surface is bright. I use it for secondary UI like helper text, subtle panel backgrounds, and light dividers in docs-heavy products, especially dashboards and finance apps where you want clarity without the glare. In publishing workflows, it's handy for margins, footnotes, and background fields that need to stay lighter than the main content but still feel real.

One quirk: because it's not as near-white as , it can show faint texture when paired with thick, pure-white elements. Keep your typographic contrast consistent and it behaves.

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Conversions

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Code snippets

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Contrast checker

WCAG 2.1 contrast ratios. AA requires 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large. AAA requires 7:1 / 4.5:1.

On White #ffffff

Aa
1.09:1Fail

On Gray 100 #f5f5f5

Aa
1.00:1Fail

On Gray 900 #18181b

Aa
16.25:1AAA

On Black #000000

Aa
19.26:1AAA

Variations

Shades

Darker variations, created by mixing toward black.

Tints

Lighter variations, created by mixing toward white.

Tones

Muted variations, created by reducing saturation.

Hues

Hue rotations around the color wheel.

Temperatures

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Color harmonies

Complementary
Analogous
Triadic
Split Complementary
Tetradic

Suggested palettes

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Community palettes

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