Ivory Color Palette

Ivory is a warm near-white, named after elephant tusk. The CSS keyword ivory is #FFFFF0; design palettes usually sit a shade deeper, around #F5F0E1. Copy the HEX codes from any scheme below, or generate a harmonious ivory palette anchored to your own base colour.

Ivory Palette Ideas & HEX Codes

Soft Ivory is the lightest, from #FFFFF7 down to #DDD3BC. Ivory & Cream is marginally yellower and gives one more usable step at #D0C3A5. Warm Ivory has the most contrast in it, reaching #BFAF8E at 65% lightness.

Soft Ivory

#FFFFF7
#FBF7EC
#F5F0E1
#ECE4D0
#DDD3BC

Ivory & Cream

#FFFEF5
#FAF4E6
#F0E9D6
#E3D9C0
#D0C3A5

Warm Ivory

#FDFBF3
#F5F0E1
#E8DFCB
#D6C9AE
#BFAF8E

Anchored to an ivory base — press Space or Generate to roll more schemes. Click a swatch to copy its HEX, lock one to keep it while the rest re-roll, then export as CSS, JSON or HEX.

Free, no sign-up Generated in your browser CSS, JSON & HEX export

Drag in the colour area or the hue bar, or type a HEX / RGB value, then build a scheme anchored to it.

What Goes With Ivory

Ivory is a ground colour and nothing on this page contrasts with anything else, so the first addition has to be dark — a charcoal, deep brown or black for text. After that it takes sage green, gold and burgundy particularly well, which is why wedding stationery, luxury packaging and editorial layouts default to it. See cream for the warmer, slightly deeper alternative.

Frequently Asked Questions

What HEX codes make an ivory palette?
Ivory palettes are warm, very light off-whites: near-whites (#FFFFF7, #FAF4E6), a true ivory (#F5F0E1) and one deeper tan (#DDD3BC, #BFAF8E) so text and edges have contrast. The warm, creamy tint is what separates ivory from a pure cold white. Rather than mixing your own, take one of the three sets above: Soft Ivory, Ivory & Cream or Warm Ivory. Their outer limits are #BFAF8E and #FFFFF7, a ratio of 2.1:1, short of the 3:1 needed even for large text, so bring in a neutral when something has to be read.
What is the difference between ivory and white?
Ivory is white with yellow in it. Pure white #FFFFFF has no hue at all; ivory #F5F0E1 sits at 45° hue with 50% saturation and 92% lightness. On screen the difference is subtle, but ivory removes the glare of a pure white background without reading as a colour in its own right.
How do I use these colours in CSS?
Click Copy CSS for a ready-to-paste :root block with each colour as a custom property (--color-1, --color-2 and so on), or copy a single HEX straight from any swatch above. On a narrow phone the generator shows four swatches instead of five, so the block you copy there carries four custom properties. Whatever the width, it rolls around #F5F0E1, the ivory this page is seeded with, so the export stays on-hue. Copy JSON and Copy HEX give the same values as an array and as a comma-separated line.
Which ivory shade should I use as a background?
For a page or card background take the lightest step in the set — #FFFFF7 on this page. Black text on #FFFFF7 comes to 20.8:1, well past the 4.5:1 WCAG AA line. There is no genuinely dark step in this set — #BFAF8E is the deepest and white text on it manages only 2.1:1 — so a darker neutral has to come from outside the palette. The mid steps are better spent on borders, chart fills and hover states, where nothing has to be read at 14px.

More palettes: Cream palette  ·  Beige palette  ·  Coquette palette  ·  all colours