Flaming Phacelia
Flaming Phacelia (#08AFFF) is a true cyan with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (199°, 100%, 52%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old French flamme, flame — present-participle of flame. As a color modifier, flaming implies a saturated-and-fire-and-bright-color quality, the bright color of autumn-Maple-and-Oak deciduous-foliage fall-color and Yule-log fire emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to fiery and blazing in usage.
The genus Phacelia — lacy phacelia or blue tansy — a North American native and naturalized European cover crop with deep-blue cymose inflorescences attractive to bees. The color refers to a fresh P. tanacetifolia field at peak bloom: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of small clustered florets covering the entire field.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.