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Hygienic Catnip Kingfisher

#06a4b6
Notes

Hygienic Catnip Kingfisher (#06A4B6) is a true cyan with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (186°, 94%, 37%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#06a4b6
RGB
rgb(6, 164, 182)
HSL
hsl(186, 94%, 37%)
HWB
hwb(186 2% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(65.8% 0.113 208.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2879 0.6334 0.7034)
HSV
hsv(186, 97%, 71%)
LAB
lab(61.62% -28.57 -19.31)
LCH
lch(61.62% 34.48 214.06)
CMYK
cmyk(97%, 10%, 0%, 29%)

Etymology

Hygienic
adjective

Greek hygieinós, healthful — derived from Hygieia (goddess of health). As a color modifier, hygienic implies a clear-and-medical-clean quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and sterile in usage.

Catnip
modifier

Old English catte-nepe, cat-mint-or-catnip. As a color modifier, catnip implies a cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb quality, the visual register of English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip hand-cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room catnip-and-cat-mint surfaces under English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room Sussex-cottage-and-New-England-Quaker-garden cottage-herb-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to hyssop and lovage in usage.

Kingfisher
noun

The family Alcedinidae — particularly Alcedo atthis, the European common kingfisher whose iridescent turquoise-blue plumage gives the color its name. The color refers to a male European kingfisher's wing: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the iridescent satin finish of structurally colored feathers.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#06a4b6
Original
#949db7
Protanopia
#7f8eb6
Deuteranopia
#00aca9
Tritanopia
#848484
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon White
3.00:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.99:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##06A4B6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2879 0.6334 0.7034)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.113

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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