Pick colours. Build a palette. Send it to the floor.

About this library

This library is PiHue Creations’ working colour reference, the same one our dye house uses in Bhadohi. It contains 2,400 physical dye codes — 1,400 for wool and 1,000 for viscose/silk — each tied to a locked recipe we can repeat for an order. Every rug we quote in a buyer’s brand colour starts here.

We’ve put it on the open web because the alternative — emailing JPEG swatches back and forth, or shipping colour books that take two weeks — is slower than it needs to be. A designer in London or a brand manager in New York can now shortlist 10 colours in ten minutes, share the link with their team, and send the final selection to our floor without a single physical sample arriving late.

Colour-matching confidence: Pantone · PiHue · hex, with ΔE

Every PiHue dye code in this library carries three machine-readable values so your brief is unambiguous the moment it leaves your desk:

1. Our in-house dye code — what the dye house opens the recipe book to (e.g. 3H12, F150).
2. The nearest Pantone TCX/TPG reference — computed against 2,272 textile Pantones so you can map any brand-standard Pantone to a wool or silk dye we can reproduce.
3. The sRGB hex — what digital designers paste into Figma, InDesign, or an interior visualisation.

Each pairing is scored with CIE76 ΔE (delta E) — the perceptual distance between two colours in CIE L*a*b* space. This is the same metric Pantone, textile mills and print houses use to quantify colour match. Lower is closer:

ΔE	How it reads	Buyer action
< 2	Essentially identical to the eye — the human visual system cannot reliably tell them apart under normal light.	Approve on screen and proceed to lab dip for sign-off.
2–5	Close match. Side-by-side under daylight a trained colourist may spot a tiny shift; under separated lighting, buyers accept it without comment.	Typical retail-programme tolerance. Lab dip confirms.
5–10	Visible shift in hue, chroma or lightness. Still in the same colour family but the buyer will see the difference if they hold the two together.	Call out at approval. Often fine for a muted or earth-tone brief; a flag for brand-critical corporate colours.
> 10	Loose match. Usually means the target sits outside wool/viscose’s natural dye gamut — fluorescent neons, screen-primary RGB saturations, the very palest pastels.	We propose the nearest honest alternative, flag the gamut limit, and discuss expectations before sampling.

The matcher is an engineering shortlist, not a specification. Final colour always locks against a physical lab dip — a small yarn sample dyed to the agreed recipe, checked under a D65 daylight simulator, photographed and couriered. But getting the ΔE score before you commit to sampling saves one or two iteration cycles, which is a week or two off the clock on a seasonal drop.

Why the ΔE column changes real buying decisions

• Hospitality & brand buyers can see immediately whether their brand-standard Pantone sits inside our achievable gamut or asks for a dye that doesn’t exist in wool chemistry. A Pantone that resolves at ΔE 12 isn’t our failure — it’s the honest outer edge of what dye lots on protein fibre can reach, and knowing this before the PO saves a quarter of back-and-forth.
• Interior designers can pre-flight a palette: if every colour in your shortlist is ΔE < 5 to a real PiHue code, the rug can hold the brief. If three of the eight sit at ΔE 15, swap them for the nearest neighbour now, not after the strike-off arrives.
• Private-label programmes get repeatability for free — your approved code and its Pantone equivalent and its hex all travel together on the PO. Next year’s drop re-quotes against the same triplet. No colour drift between seasons, no translation errors between the designer’s Figma file and the dye house’s recipe book.

How the match is computed

For every PiHue pom we have extracted a reference sRGB value, converted to CIE L*a*b* (D65 white point, linear-sRGB gamma), and run a CIE76 ΔE comparison against each of 2,272 Pantone TCX/TPG codes (the open textile Pantone set). The nearest Pantone, its hex and the ΔE are stored against the PiHue code. No visual estimation, no AI guess — a deterministic colour-space calculation you can audit.

The mirror calculation powers the Pantone → PiHue matcher: enter any Pantone code, see the five nearest wool codes and five nearest viscose/silk codes with their own ΔE scores and lab-dip starting point.

What the ΔE distribution tells you (and how to filter by it)

Across our 2,400 PiHue dye codes scored against 2,272 Pantone TCX/TPG references, the match distribution looks like this:

Band	Codes	Share	What it means in a brief
Identical ΔE < 2	346	14%	We can promise an essentially perfect Pantone match for roughly one in seven shades in our library — the safest picks for brand-standard or corporate colour work.
Close ΔE 2–5	1,116	47%	Nearly half the library sits here — the retail-programme sweet spot where the Pantone equivalent reads acceptable under separated lighting.
Shift ΔE 5–10	578	24%	The target Pantone is in reach but you’d see the gap side by side. Fine for muted / earth-tone briefs; flag at approval for brand-critical work.
Loose ΔE > 10	360	15%	Usually PiHue codes whose nearest Pantone sits outside protein-fibre dye gamut — or a PiHue shade uniquely ours with no close Pantone cousin. We flag these and propose honest alternatives.

Combined, 61% of our library (1,462 codes) has a wool or silk shade that lab-dips to within an industry-acceptable Pantone match. That’s the honest number — and it’s the one that matters when you’re deciding whether to commit a brand colour to a 90-day production run.

Use the Pantone-match filter chips above the grid to narrow by band. Click Identical to see only the 346 codes that will hit any Pantone at ΔE < 2; click Loose to find shades where we’ll flag a lab-dip warning. Combine with the family filter for very specific questions — e.g. “which wool greens hit Pantone identically?” = Wool + Green + Identical; “which silks have Pantone problems I should know about?” = Viscose/Silk + Loose.

Three workflows that use this efficiently

Brand manager — defending a brand-standard Pantone

You have a Pantone (say 19-4052 Classic Blue) in your brand book. Open the Pantone matcher, search the code, read the top-5 wool and top-5 silk matches with ΔE. Top match < 3 — write the wool code into the spec sheet with confidence; top match > 8 — book a call with us before committing. The wool dye-gamut edge is real and we’ll propose honest alternatives before the sampling clock starts.

Designer — building a 10-colour mood board the factory can actually make

Browse the main library, click Close on the Pantone-match filter, then narrow by family to match your palette direction. Every code visible under this filter has a Pantone anchor the client can reference back to, and every code is reproducible on wool or silk to within ΔE 5. Add up to 10 to the mood board, name it, download the PDF, share with the client in the same meeting.

Hospitality procurement — seeing the gamut before you specify

Pull your brand’s corporate Pantone list. For each colour, check it in the Pantone matcher. If 80% of your corporate palette resolves at ΔE < 5, the hotel’s rug programme is a straightforward specification. If 30% comes back at ΔE > 10, flag before sending RFP — wool/silk cannot hit those specific colours and the spec needs an exception, a different fibre call-out, or a lab-dip waiver.

What ΔE does not measure — and why we still ask for a lab dip

ΔE captures perceptual colour distance in a standardised colour space under a standardised illuminant (D65 daylight). It does not capture:

• Metamerism — the same ΔE can shift under warm LED vs incandescent vs north-facing daylight. A lab dip checked under D65 and in-room light catches this.
• Fibre-specific optics — wool scatters light (matte), silk reflects it (specular). Two dyes at identical ΔE on-screen read differently as dyed yarn.
• Pile direction & cut — a hand-knotted cut pile absorbs more light than a loop pile; the same recipe reads about half a tone darker in cut vs loop.
• Dye-lot variation — even with a locked recipe, wool from different spinning lots takes dye slightly differently. The lab dip is the first lot; production lots are matched against it.

Every real colour commitment on a PiHue rug closes with a physical lab dip — approximately 10 days for a small yarn sample dyed to the agreed recipe, photographed and couriered for sign-off. ΔE gives us the shortlist; the lab dip settles it.

The two libraries, and why we keep both

Wool · 1,400 shades

The wool library is the backbone of our dye operation. Wool is a protein fibre; it accepts dye deeply, holds colour over decades, and ages warm (the lanolin oxidises slowly, pulling pale wool half a step warmer by year three). Wool poms read matte on camera because the fibre is scattering light in every direction — which is actually how they look underfoot. If a brief says “a dense rug for a living room”, the base yarn is almost always wool.

Viscose / Silk · 1,000 shades

Viscose and bamboo-silk belong together in one library because they are the same chemistry — regenerated cellulose, a wood-pulp or bamboo-pulp fibre spun to look and feel like silk. (Mulberry silk itself is a different fibre, but the dye behaviour overlaps enough that our viscose codes cover both for most matching work.) The sheen comes from the physical geometry of the fibre, not a dye effect — which is why these poms photograph with specular highlights, and why a flat on-screen chip never does them justice. Our swatches render as three-tone gradients to approximate this; the real pom has more depth.

Mixing them in one rug

Most of our hand-knotted and hand-tufted work is a wool base with silk highlights on the motifs — a technique that keeps the floor durable (wool carries foot traffic) while giving focal areas their sheen (silk catches light). The two libraries are kept distinct because the dyer treats them as different materials; the on-screen codes let a designer pick both and send one unified palette.

How the codes work

Each code is a letter plus a number — F150, 3H12, J088. The letter denotes the shade family slot within the catalogue; the number is the specific recipe. A code is not a Pantone equivalent — it is our dye-lot reference. When a buyer picks F150, we open the physical pom box, pull F150, and the dye house mixes a known recipe to match it.

If the colour you want isn’t in the library, we build a custom recipe from a Pantone number, an approved physical swatch, or an image. Our quotation sheet accepts any of these; the lab dip reconciles them into a locked recipe just like a library code.

The three colour-reference systems we work with

System	What it is	How we use it
Pantone TPX / TCX	Digital-plus-physical reference; TPX for paper swatches, TCX for textile. ~2,100 colours.	Buyer sends a Pantone number → we match in the dye house → lab dip for approval.
Our library (this page)	2,400 physical pom codes we hold in-house.	Buyer picks codes from this page → we pull physical poms → dye recipe is already locked.
Physical swatch	A fabric, yarn, or paint chip you post to us.	Our colourist matches by eye and dye-recipe trial → lab dip for approval.

All three paths converge at the lab dip — a small physical yarn sample dyed to the agreed recipe, photographed and shipped to the buyer for sign-off. Only after the lab dip is approved does the dye house run bulk yarn for the rug.

Why on-screen colour is approximate (and what to do about it)

Three things make screen-colour unreliable, and they compound:

• Monitor variation — two monitors next to each other render the same hex differently; sRGB vs DCI-P3, calibration state, brightness setting, warm-light mode, all shift what you see.
• Metamerism — the same dye recipe reflects different wavelengths back to the eye under different light. Daylight is bluer; incandescent is warmer; most LED showroom light is somewhere between. A yarn that reads “grey” under one and “mushroom” under another is normal.
• Fibre texture flattens on screen — silk sheen, wool matte, carpet pile depth all disappear in a flat chip. We render each swatch as a three-tone gradient to put some of that back, but it’s a stand-in.

The practical fix is to treat this page as a shortlist tool, not a colour-management system. Narrow to 5–10 candidates on screen, then ask us to send physical poms. We ship pom-strips free for serious enquiries, usually within a week.

How construction changes a colour

The same yarn in the same dye lot can read as a different colour depending on how it’s woven. Buyers who’ve approved a strike-off at one construction and switched to another later are often surprised; here’s what’s actually happening.

• Hand-knotted: colours read sharp. Each knot is one pixel; design boundaries are crisp. Dark colours look darkest here because the pile is cut and absorbs the most light.
• Hand-tufted (cut pile): softer than hand-knotted, slightly deeper tone because the pile is longer.
• Hand-tufted (loop pile): reads brighter than cut pile at the same colour — loop surfaces reflect more light.
• Carved relief: carved motifs catch shadows along the carved edges, which makes the carved colour look about half a tone darker than the flat ground.
• Handloom: smooth, flat finish — colours read closest to the yarn hank itself.
• Flatweave (dhurrie, kilim): warp-and-weft alternation means two yarns are visible from a distance, so a dhurrie in “blue” and “cream” reads as a mid-tone from across the room.

How many colours should a rug have?

Honest ranges from the floor — what works, not what’s theoretically possible:

• Flatweave / dhurrie: 2–6 colours. Weavers manage shuttle changes; too many colours slow the loom.
• Handloom broadloom: 1–3 colours. Usually plain, heather, or lightly figured.
• Hand-tufted: 5–15 colours. Modern programmes; carved relief adds visual complexity without more colour.
• Hand-knotted: 10–30 colours is normal. Signature pieces and museum-grade work can hit 40+, each requiring its own lab dip and dye lot.

Each additional colour adds roughly 10 days of lab-dip time per colourway and a 1 kg minimum dye lot. For most retail programmes we recommend capping at 15 colours unless the design truly needs more.

Light-fastness, washing, and how colours age

Dye performance isn’t uniform across the colour wheel. A few patterns worth knowing before you commit a brief:

• Reds and pinks are the hardest to lock for high UV exposure. If a rug will sit in a sunny room, we recommend testing light-fastness on the specific recipe (ISO 105-B02) at the lab-dip stage.
• Blues and greens are generally more stable; indigo-family blues particularly so (centuries of use for a reason).
• Pastels and pale neutrals show soiling, UV shift, and wash-recipe variation more than mid-tones. See our ecru rugs page for the detail on pale-neutral programmes.
• Blacks and very dark colours occasionally bronze (develop a brownish cast) under heavy UV; we flag this on dark hand-knotted briefs.

Our wash recipe is tuned per colour family — hotter wash for mid-tones gives a cleaner finish; a gentler wash for ecru preserves lanolin and keeps the shade on-recipe.

Building a palette and the mood-board download

Click any swatch to add it to your palette (bottom of screen, up to 10 colours). From there you have three paths:

1. Copy share link — the URL updates with your selection as ?pick=F150,3H12,...; send that link to a design partner, client, or showroom to open the exact same palette. No sign-up.
2. Send to PiHue — opens our enquiry form pre-filled with your palette. We reply with pricing, construction options, and a sampling plan the same working day.
3. Mood board — renders your palette as a full-page branded sheet suitable for client presentations. The PDF download is gated behind a short form — we send the branded PDF to your screen immediately and keep a note of the palette on our side so we can quote faster when you follow up.

Working with us from the library

After you send a palette, a typical sampling cycle runs:

1. Day 0 — palette received, quotation returned the same working day.
2. Day 7–10 — lab dip for each colour; small physical yarn sample in each shade, photographed and couriered.
3. Day 15–20 — strike-off (a small physical rug sample at target construction and GSM) once dyes are approved.
4. Day 30–90 — bulk production once the strike-off is approved. Lead time depends on construction and quantity; see MOQ, lead times & shipping.

MOQ is 1 piece. Lab-dip cost is credited back on orders above a quantity threshold — we quote the specifics on your brief.