From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the film, see Powder Blue (film)

Powder blue may refer to two different colors. Originally, it referred to a dark blue color, but it has since come to refer to a pale blue color, possibly because the name reminded people of baby powder and so people thought of it as a color similar to baby blue. The original color is now called dark powder blue.

The paler variant is often associated with Powder Snow.

Powder blue (web color powder blue)

Powder Blue
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#B0E0E6
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(176, 224, 230)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(220°, 70%, 90%)
Source		X11[1]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The web color powder blue is shown on the right.

The first recorded use of powder blue (the pale blue color) as a color name in English was in 1774. ^[2]

Dark powder blue (Smalt)

Dark Powder Blue
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#003399
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(0, 51, 153)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(220°, 70%, 60%)
Source		[Unsourced]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The color dark powder blue, also called smalt, is displayed to the right. The original powder blue color referred to smalt, a crushed-glass product used in laundering and dying applications and of a deep, dark blue hue. The cobalt blue colored glass was itself made from zaffre.

The first recorded use of powder blue (the dark blue color) as a color name in English was in 1707. ^[3]

References

1. ^ W3C TR CSS3 Color Module, HTML4 color keywords
2. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202. See color sample of Powder Blue Page 95--Plate 36 Color Sample H2
3. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202. See color sample of Powder Blue (Smalt) Page 109--Plate 43 Color Sample D11

See also

• List of colors

External links

• Smalt