CSS: How to Blur Text – A Stylish Guide to Text Effects

Blurring text is a creative way to design modern UI elements, focus user attention, or create mysterious and elegant effects. Whether you’re building a login screen, a teaser page, or a blurred overlay, CSS makes it easy to apply blur to text with just a few lines of code.

In this blog post, you’ll learn how to blur text using CSS effectively and with full browser support.

Table of Contents

🌀 Why Blur Text?

Blurring text is useful when:

You want to hide sensitive information.
You’re designing loading or preview states.
You want to make a visually intriguing interface.
You want to focus user attention on nearby content.

✅ Method 1: Blur Text Using `filter: blur()`

The easiest way to blur text is by using the filter property.

📌 Example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Blur Text Example</title>
  <style>
    .blur-text {
      font-size: 24px;
      color: black;
      filter: blur(3px);
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>

  <p class="blur-text">This text is blurred using CSS.</p>

</body>
</html>

🛠 How It Works:

filter: blur(3px); applies a Gaussian blur to the text.
You can increase the value for a stronger blur (blur(5px), blur(8px), etc.).

🎨 Method 2: Blur Text on Hover (Interactive Effect)

You can blur text when the user hovers over it, which adds a dynamic and interactive feel.

<style>
  .hover-blur-text {
    font-size: 24px;
    transition: filter 0.3s ease;
  }

  .hover-blur-text:hover {
    filter: blur(4px);
  }
</style>

<p class="hover-blur-text">Hover over this text to blur it.</p>

🔐 Method 3: Hide Sensitive Text with Blur + Reveal on Hover

This technique is great for obfuscating passwords or spoilers.

<style>
  .secure-text {
    filter: blur(5px);
    cursor: pointer;
    transition: filter 0.3s ease;
  }

  .secure-text:hover {
    filter: none;
  }
</style>

<p class="secure-text">Sensitive Information</p>

🧪 Pro Tip: Combine Blur with Opacity for Softer Effects

.soft-blur {
  filter: blur(2px);
  opacity: 0.6;
}

This makes the text appear faded and gently blurred, useful for placeholder or disabled UI text.

❌ Not Recommended: `text-shadow` for Blur

Some developers try to simulate blur using large text-shadow values. While it can mimic the look, it’s not as smooth or flexible as filter: blur().

🧾 Conclusion

Blurring text with CSS is a simple yet powerful tool for modern web design. With just filter: blur(px), you can create engaging, interactive, and polished visual effects.

Need more effects? Try combining blur with grayscale, brightness, or CSS transitions for richer UI animation.