The Amaranth Color Code: HEX, RGB, CMYK

Amaranth color is a warm, vivid reddish-pink that sits between crimson and rose on the color wheel, combining a dominant red base with a magenta-adjacent pink undertone.

The color carries strong cultural weight rooted in the Greek word “amarantos,” meaning unfading, and functions as a high-saturation tertiary tone with RGB values of (229, 43, 80).

It shows up in fashion, branding, interior design, and digital interfaces more than most people realize.

This guide covers everything from hex codes and color palettes to color psychology, paint mixing, and practical design applications, so you leave with a complete picture of how to use it well.

Amaranth Color Codes

Amaranth (#E52B50) is a vivid reddish-pink sitting firmly in the warm color family. It carries a strong red base with just enough pink to push it away from pure red, landing somewhere between crimson and rose on the color theory spectrum.

Here are the exact color codes across every major RGB and print system:

• HEX: #E52B50
• RGB: 229, 43, 80
• CMYK: 0% cyan, 81% magenta, 65% yellow, 10% black
• HSL: 348°, 78%, 53%
• HSB/HSV: 348°, 81%, 90%

The hue sits at 348 degrees, which puts it near the red-pink boundary on the color wheel. The high saturation (78%) is what gives it that punchy, vivid quality. It is not a pastel, not a muted tone. It demands attention.

If you need to convert values for a project, tools like an RGB to HEX Converter or a HEX to RGB Converter will get you there quickly. For print work, an RGB to CMYK converter is worth bookmarking since screen-to-print shifts can catch you off guard with this color.

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Amaranth Color Palettes

Amaranth works well in a range of color schemes. Below are the main harmony types based on its position on the color wheel.

Need to build a full scheme around this color? A good color palette generator can save a lot of time when working out secondary and tertiary pairings.

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Amaranth Shades

Amaranth encompasses multiple variations including deep amaranth, amaranth red, amaranth pink, amaranth purple, light amaranth, and pale amaranth blush.

Each variation differs in saturation and lightness, with some leaning lighter toward pink-white and others deepening toward a near-burgundy darkness, creating very different aesthetic effects depending on the application.

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What Are the Primary Attributes of Amaranth?

Amaranth has five primary attributes: high saturation (derived from its dense red-pink pigment composition), warm undertone, vivid brightness, strong visual weight, and cultural associations with endurance and immortality.

Together these qualities make it one of the more assertive warm colors in the red-pink family.

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How Is Amaranth Used in Interior Design?

Amaranth functions as a bold statement color in interior design, creating energetic and passionate spaces that feel alive and confident.

Designers use it most often for accent walls, upholstered furniture, and decorative textiles in contemporary, maximalist, and eclectic styles. It pairs well with warm neutrals like cream and ivory to keep rooms grounded.

Because it reflects about 19% of light (relatively low LRV), it works better in well-lit rooms or used in smaller doses. A full amaranth wall in a dim north-facing room can feel heavy fast.

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What Psychology and Emotions Does Amaranth Evoke?

Amaranth evokes feelings of passion, confidence, creativity, and vitality through its cultural and visual connection to the unfading amaranth flower.

Color psychology research indicates it stimulates energy and optimism, projects assertiveness without aggression, and creates environments that encourage bold thinking and emotional expression.

The name itself comes from the Greek “amarantos,” meaning “one that does not wither.” That history adds a layer of symbolic weight most colors simply don’t have. In Mesoamerican cultures it was tied to immortality and ritual. In the Western world, it reads as love, celebration, and strength.

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How Is Amaranth Applied in Fashion and Clothing?

Amaranth serves as a strong statement color in fashion, offering bold visual presence through evening wear, outerwear, and accessories.

Fashion designers use it for its warm intensity, capacity to stand out without going full neon, and ability to carry through from autumn into spring collections. It reads as confident and fashion-forward without crossing into aggressive territory.

Skin undertone matters here. Amaranth flatters warm and olive skin tones particularly well. On very cool or pink-toned skin it can compete, though gold accessories tend to balance that out. I’ve seen it used in runway looks where the entire outfit is amaranth head-to-toe, and it actually works because the color has enough tonal depth to not look flat at scale.

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What Colors Complement and Contrast With Amaranth?

Amaranth complements teal, gold, ivory, navy blue, and forest green while contrasting effectively with mint green, cyan, and bright aqua.

These combinations produce bold and sophisticated color palettes that use amaranth’s warm intensity as the anchor or accent point.

Complementary Colors

Amaranth + Teal

• Color Theory Basis: Near-complementary pairing. Teal sits roughly opposite amaranth on the color wheel, creating natural tension and balance.
• Visual Effect: High energy, modern contrast. Neither color dominates when used at similar weights.
• Best Applications: Brand identities, poster design, editorial layouts
• Ratio Recommendations: 70% teal / 30% amaranth works well as accent
• Example Uses: Tech brand identity, event posters, packaging

Amaranth + Gold

• Color Theory Basis: Both warm colors, but gold’s yellow base creates contrast against amaranth’s red-pink. Analogous warmth with enough difference to stay interesting.
• Visual Effect: Rich, premium, celebratory
• Best Applications: Wedding design, luxury branding, packaging
• Ratio Recommendations: 60% amaranth / 40% gold, or reverse for a warmer feel
• Example Uses: Invitations, product labels, jewelry branding

Amaranth + Ivory

• Color Theory Basis: Neutral pairing. Ivory softens amaranth’s intensity without making it feel flat.
• Visual Effect: Elegant, approachable, feminine without being soft
• Best Applications: Interior design, fashion editorial, cosmetics branding
• Ratio Recommendations: 80% ivory / 20% amaranth as accent
• Example Uses: Bedroom color schemes, product packaging, website backgrounds

Amaranth + Navy Blue

• Color Theory Basis: Cool-warm contrast. Navy grounds amaranth’s energy and adds sophistication.
• Visual Effect: Bold and refined simultaneously
• Best Applications: Fashion, corporate branding with personality, web design
• Ratio Recommendations: 65% navy / 35% amaranth
• Example Uses: Clothing collections, brand identity, app UI accents

Contrasting Colors

Amaranth + Mint Green

• Contrast Type: Near-complementary
• Visual Impact: Playful, high-energy, unexpected
• Best Applications: Social media graphics, youth-oriented branding, packaging
• Balance Strategies: Use mint as background with amaranth as accent only

Amaranth + Cyan

• Contrast Type: Strong complementary tension
• Visual Impact: Very bold, almost neon-adjacent energy
• Best Applications: Digital advertising, gaming design, event graphics
• Balance Strategies: Keep one color at 10-15% maximum; this combination can overwhelm quickly

Amaranth + Charcoal

• Contrast Type: Value contrast (light vs. dark)
• Visual Impact: Dramatic, modern, high-end
• Best Applications: Web design, UI, fashion editorial, branding
• Balance Strategies: Charcoal as dominant, amaranth as CTA or focal accent

Color Scheme Types

• Monochromatic: Pale amaranth blush through original amaranth down to dark amaranth. Works well in fashion and interior design for a cohesive, tonal look. See monochrome colors for more on how these schemes are built.
• Analogous: Amaranth paired with hot pink and coral. Energetic and visually consistent. These analogous colors share enough warmth to feel unified.
• Triadic: Amaranth, chartreuse green, and cobalt blue. High contrast, vibrant. Use a triadic color scheme approach with amaranth as dominant for the best results.
• Split-Complementary: Amaranth with mint green and sky blue. Softer than full complementary. A split-complementary color scheme is often the safer choice when you want visual tension without full clash.
• Tetradic: Amaranth, gold, teal, and cobalt. Complex but balanced. A tetradic color scheme needs one dominant color, and amaranth handles that role well.

Practical Pairing Guidelines

• 60-30-10 Rule: Amaranth works best as the 10% accent in most interior and branding applications. As the 30% supporting color in fashion. Rarely as the 60% dominant unless the context is intentionally bold.
• Accent Color Strategy: Use amaranth for CTAs, key data points, and focal elements. The high saturation naturally draws the eye. Tying back to emphasis principles, amaranth does the job without needing extra design support.
• Neutral Bridging: Ivory, warm white, and light gray all work as connecting neutrals between amaranth and any secondary color. Avoid cool grays; they create an awkward clash with amaranth’s warmth.

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How Does Amaranth Differ From Similar Warm Colors?

Amaranth differs from magenta (more purple-leaning, less red), crimson (deeper and darker, less pink), fuchsia (more violet, higher blue content), and cerise (closer to deep cherry red) through its specific balance of red dominance, warm pink undertone, and mid-range lightness.

Took me a while to reliably tell amaranth from cerise without checking hex codes. At a glance they’re close. The key is that amaranth reads warmer and slightly lighter. Cerise has more of a cool cherry pull.

If you are building a color palette and struggling to choose between these, check the undertone first. Amaranth reads warm. Most of the others lean cooler or more purple. That single difference shapes how the whole palette feels.

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How Do You Create Amaranth in Different Mediums?

Create amaranth by mixing a warm red with a small amount of magenta or rose in paint, using hex #E52B50 in digital design, or setting RGB values to (229, 43, 80) in screen-based applications, ensuring red dominance carries the warm intensity.

Acrylic Paint

Start with a base of Cadmium Red or Naphthol Red. Add a small amount of Quinacridone Magenta, roughly 70% red to 30% magenta as a starting point. Mix thoroughly before evaluating.

• Base colors needed: Naphthol Red (or Cadmium Red Medium), Quinacridone Magenta
• Mixing ratios: Approximately 70:30 red to magenta; adjust toward red if too pink, toward magenta if too orange
• Common mistake: Adding white to lighten it. This kills the saturation fast. Use a touch more magenta instead for lighter tints.
• Adjustment tip: A tiny amount of Titanium White shifts it toward amaranth pink; skip white entirely for the saturated original

Oil Paint

Use Quinacridone Red with Permanent Rose or Rose Madder. Oil pigments are more transparent, so layering will deepen the hue more reliably than single-pass mixing.

• Pigments required: Quinacridone Red (PV19 or PR209), Permanent Rose
• Drying consideration: Oil colors shift slightly darker as they dry. Mix a touch lighter than your target to compensate.

Watercolor

Quinacridone Rose with Opera Pink or Pyrrol Scarlet gets close. Watercolor amaranth needs higher pigment concentration, so keep water minimal in the mixing well.

• Pigment selection: Quinacridone Rose (transparent) gives the most accurate result
• Dilution: Start at roughly 3:1 pigment-to-water for full saturation
• Layering: Two thin washes deliver better depth than one heavy wash, which can bloom unpredictably

Gouache

Gouache handles this color well because of its natural opacity. Mix Permanent Red with Magenta gouache. Unlike watercolor, adding white is fine here since gouache is already opaque and white does not kill vibrancy the same way.

• Base: Permanent Red + Magenta in roughly equal parts, adjusted to taste
• Tip: Gouache dries slightly darker and more matte. Test on scrap paper before committing.

Print / CMYK

• Cyan: 0%
• Magenta: 81%
• Yellow: 65%
• Black: 10%
• Printing note: Coated paper holds this color much better than uncoated. On matte uncoated stock, expect the color to lose some vibrancy and appear slightly more muted.
• Pantone matching: Pantone 192 C is a reasonable match. Use a Pantone swatch book to confirm before going to print, especially for brand work where color accuracy matters.

For digital-to-print conversion work, an HSL to RGB converter can help when your source values are in HSL format. And if you are working across screen sizes and responsive layouts, keeping unit conversions straight matters too. A PX to REM converter or a PX to PT tool will handle the repetitive math.

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What Are the Best Practices for Using Amaranth in Design?

Best practices include using amaranth as an accent rather than a dominant color, pairing it with neutral backgrounds, checking contrast ratios against text, and defining consistent usage rules in any brand system before deployment.

Designers should test amaranth against both light and dark backgrounds early in the process, verify WCAG contrast requirements for any text overlaid on it, and ensure the color does not compete with primary content. Its high saturation makes it powerful, but also easy to overuse.

A few specific things worth keeping in mind:

• Run it through a color contrast checker before finalizing any UI with white or light text on amaranth. It passes at some sizes and fails at others.
• Avoid pairing amaranth with other highly saturated warm colors in the same composition. It competes instead of complementing.
• In print design, test on actual paper before sign-off. The shift from screen to coated stock can be significant.
• Balance and visual hierarchy both depend on restraint with a color this strong. Reserve it for the highest-priority element on the page.

Also, document it properly. If you are building brand materials, it belongs in your brand guidelines with exact HEX, RGB, and CMYK values alongside usage rules. Vague color guidance always causes problems later when vendors and collaborators interpret the color differently.

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What Role Does Amaranth Play in Branding and Marketing?

Amaranth plays a bold accent role in branding and marketing, communicating passion, confidence, and creative energy to consumers. Research shows warm red-pink tones increase urgency and emotional engagement, making it effective for brands in beauty, fashion, food, and lifestyle sectors seeking an expressive and modern identity.

It sits in an interesting space between the urgency of red and the approachability of pink. That makes it more flexible than pure red for brands that want energy without aggression.

It is used in CTA buttons, promotional campaigns, product packaging, and social media visuals where stopping power matters. In beauty and fashion branding especially, it reads as confident and current. Less clinical than corporate red, less soft than rose. If a brand wants to say “bold but not harsh,” amaranth is a reasonable answer.

For anyone building out a full brand identity, a font pairing generator is worth running alongside color decisions. The wrong typeface undermines even the best color choice, and amaranth in particular needs a typeface with enough presence to hold its own alongside it.

FAQ on Amaranth Color

What exactly is amaranth color?

Amaranth is a vivid reddish-pink with hex code #E52B50 and RGB values of (229, 43, 80).

It sits between crimson and rose on the color wheel, carrying a warm red base with a noticeable magenta-adjacent pink undertone. High saturation is its defining quality.

Where does the name amaranth come from?

The name comes from the Greek word “amarantos,” meaning “one that does not wither.”

It references the amaranth plant, whose flowers stay vivid long after cutting. The color name was first recorded in English in 1690.

What is the difference between amaranth and magenta?

Amaranth leans redder. Magenta contains equal red and blue, giving it a more purple, electric quality.

Amaranth reads warmer and more grounded. In print, magenta is a CMYK primary. Amaranth is not.

What colors go well with amaranth?

Teal, gold, ivory, navy blue, and forest green all pair well with amaranth.

For high contrast, mint green and cyan work. Neutral bridging with warm white or cream keeps color combinations from feeling overwhelming in both design and interior applications.

What does amaranth color symbolize?

Amaranth symbolizes immortality, passion, and enduring strength across multiple cultures.

In Mesoamerican traditions it was tied to ritual and eternal life. In Western contexts, it reads as love, boldness, and celebration. The symbolism runs deeper than most colors its shade.

Is amaranth a warm or cool color?

Amaranth is a warm color. Its hue sits at 348 degrees on the color wheel, close to red.

The red dominance in its RGB makeup (229 red vs. 80 blue) confirms the warm classification. It has no meaningful cool or blue pull.

How is amaranth used in graphic design?

It works best as an accent, not a dominant color. Designers use it for CTA buttons, active states, focal point elements, and promotional modules.

Its high saturation draws the eye without requiring extra visual support from surrounding elements.

What is the CMYK value of amaranth for printing?

The CMYK breakdown is 0% cyan, 81% magenta, 65% yellow, and 10% black.

Coated paper holds this color better than uncoated stock. Expect some vibrancy loss on matte surfaces. Always proof before a full print run.

How does amaranth perform in interior design?

Amaranth has a low LRV of around 19, meaning it absorbs most light rather than reflecting it.

It suits well-lit rooms and works best as an accent wall, upholstery choice, or textile detail rather than an all-over wall paint color in smaller or darker spaces.

What are the main amaranth color shades and variations?

The main variations include amaranth pink (#F19CBB), amaranth red (#9F2B68), original amaranth (#E52B50), deep amaranth (#B01C3A), and dark amaranth (#7A0D26).

Each shifts in saturation and lightness, ranging from pale blush tints down to near-burgundy tones with distinct effects in application.

Conclusion

This conclusion is for an article presenting amaranth color as one of the more versatile and historically rich shades in the warm color family.

From its CMYK breakdown and HSL values to its role in fashion, branding, and interior spaces, amaranth consistently delivers bold visual impact without tipping into harsh territory.

Its symbolic roots in immortality and enduring passion give it cultural depth that few reddish-pink tones can match.

Whether you are building a color palette around it, mixing it in acrylics, or applying it as a UI accent, the principles here apply directly.

Pair it with intention, respect its saturation, and it will carry its weight in almost any design context.

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Bogdan Sandu

Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008.

Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.

His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.

He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.

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