Short answer
Both are whites with a little yellow in them; ivory has less. In the lexicon ivory's chroma runs 0.012–0.075 and cream's 0.030–0.090, at the same hue, so the palest ivories are nearly white and the strongest creams are on the way to pale yellow. The published values disagree about how far apart they are: the CSS ivory keyword is ΔE00 9.2 from the catalogue cream, a clear step, while the crowd survey's ivory and cream are only 2.0 apart and would be hard to tell from each other.
Cream and ivory sit at the same hue, about 105° in OKLCH, a yellow. What separates them is how much colour they carry. CSS ivory (#fffff0) has a chroma of 0.020; the catalogue cream (#fffdd0) has 0.058, 3.0 times as much, at slightly lower lightness. On a fine grid of 21,952 very pale sRGB colours, 61% of the colours inside ivory's region are also inside cream's and 74% of cream's are inside ivory's. The part of ivory that cream does not reach is the near-white end: 5% of ivory's colours also fall inside the lexicon's white.
The main sRGB grid used elsewhere in this section has only a handful of samples this pale, so these two regions are compared on a finer grid of near-whites.
The xkcd survey gives ivory as #ffffcb and cream as #ffffc2: chroma 0.067 against 0.078, almost the same colour. A plausible reason is the task. People typing a name for a colour on a screen need something visibly different from white before they reach for either word, so both centres land at a strength where the yellow is obvious. The CSS keyword is the other extreme, a barely tinted white. The lexicon's ivory region has to stretch from one to the other, which is why its chroma range is so wide for so pale a colour and why it is marked as moderately ambiguous.
Ivory is the one with a dated colour sense. The material's name reached English in the thirteenth century, and its use for a colour, at first mostly of skin, is attested from the 1580s. Cream as a word for the fatty part of milk dates from the early fourteenth century; the etymology source used here gives no date for its colour sense, so none is offered. Neither word was coined for a fixed colour. Each names a natural material that differs from one piece or batch to the next, and a colour word taken from such a material inherits the spread: there is no single ivory or cream for the name to point back to, only a familiar range.
CSS Color 4 has a keyword for ivory and none for cream; the only keyword containing the word is mintcream, a faintly green white. A designer wanting a web cream has to choose from a family of unrelated names. The table below places the specification's pale warm keywords in the lexicon: several that are not called cream fall inside its region, and beige (#f5f5dc) falls inside beige, ivory and cream at once. On the pale grid 60% of cream's colours are also inside beige. So on screens the practical question is rarely 'cream or ivory' and more often which of half a dozen near-whites has the right amount of yellow, which is a matter of chroma that the names do not order reliably.
In a room the difference shows mainly by comparison. Next to a brilliant white ceiling or woodwork, ivory reads as a soft white and cream as a colour; with no pure white in view, both simply read as white, and the eye adjusts to whichever is there. Warm lamps add yellow to both, pushing ivory towards cream and cream towards pale yellow, while cool north light can make ivory look grey. In fabric the names are used loosely enough that 'ivory' from one maker may be yellower than 'cream' from another, which matters for anything that must match, such as a dress and a veil. Samples seen together in the light they will be used in settle it; the names do not.
| Cream | Ivory | Shared by both | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightness (L) | 0.93–1.00 | 0.95–1.00 | 0.95–1.00 |
| Chroma (C) | 0.030–0.090 | 0.012–0.075 | 0.030–0.075 |
| Hue (h) | 85°–112° | 85°–115° | 85°–112° |
| Reference swatch | #fffdd0 (L 0.98, C 0.058, h 105°) | #fffff0 (L 1.00, C 0.020, h 107°) | ΔE00 9.2 apart |
| Pale-grid colours inside | 757 | 911 | 558 (74% of cream, 61% of ivory) |
| How settled the word is | moderate | moderate | — |
| Source of the value | Cream | Ivory | ΔE00 between them |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSS Color 4 named colour | no value published | #fffff0 (L 1.00, C 0.020, h 107°) | — |
| Colourwise catalogue profile | #fffdd0 (L 0.98, C 0.058, h 105°) | #fffff0 (L 1.00, C 0.020, h 107°) | 9.2 |
| xkcd colour survey | #ffffc2 (L 0.99, C 0.078, h 108°) | #ffffcb (L 0.99, C 0.067, h 108°) | 2.0 |
| CSS keyword | Value | OKLCH | Lexicon regions containing it |
|---|---|---|---|
| ivory | #fffff0 | L 1.00, C 0.020, h 107° | White, Ivory |
| lightyellow | #ffffe0 | L 0.99, C 0.040, h 107° | Ivory, Cream |
| lemonchiffon | #fffacd | L 0.98, C 0.058, h 102° | Ivory, Cream |
| cornsilk | #fff8dc | L 0.98, C 0.037, h 95° | Ivory, Cream |
| floralwhite | #fffaf0 | L 0.99, C 0.014, h 85° | White |
| oldlace | #fdf5e6 | L 0.97, C 0.022, h 83° | none |
| beige | #f5f5dc | L 0.96, C 0.033, h 107° | Beige, Ivory, Cream |
| antiquewhite | #faebd7 | L 0.95, C 0.031, h 75° | Beige |
Why: Each maker placed its name at a different strength of yellow, and the names overlap.
Fix: Match from physical swatches under daylight and under the venue's lighting, not from the names.
Why: A pure white next to a tinted one makes the tint read as discolouration.
Fix: Use an off-white with the same undertone for trim, or accept the contrast and choose a cream strong enough to look deliberate.
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Colourwise analysisModerate evidence
The CSS ivory value (#fffff0) is 9.2 ΔE00 from the Colourwise catalogue cream (#fffdd0), while the xkcd survey's ivory (#ffffcb) and cream (#ffffc2) are 2.0 apart.
Based on: CIEDE2000 computed by Colourwise from the published sRGB values.
Caveat: Survey values are single centres from uncalibrated screens; near white, small differences in a display's white point move both.
Source: CSS Color Module Level 4; Color survey results, and the rgb.txt list of the 954 most common colour names
StandardStrong evidence
CSS Color Level 4 defines ivory as #fffff0 and has no keyword named cream; mintcream (#f5fffa) is a different, faintly green white.
Source: CSS Color Module Level 4
FactModerate evidence
Ivory is attested as a colour word in English from the 1580s, at first especially of skin; cream is recorded as the fatty part of milk from the early 14th century.
Caveat: The source gives no date for cream's colour sense, so the two words' ages as colour terms cannot be compared from it.
Source: Online Etymology Dictionary
Colourwise interpretationModerate evidence
Cream and ivory differ in strength of colour, not in hue, and the names do not order makers' products reliably: one maker's ivory can be yellower than another's cream.
Based on: The published anchors for both names share a hue near 105°–108° and differ in chroma; the crowd survey's ivory has more chroma than the catalogue's cream.
Reviewed 1 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.