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Hot Smock Seafoam

#09d0c7
Notes

Hot Smock Seafoam (#09D0C7) is a true cyan with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (177°, 92%, 43%) 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
#09d0c7
RGB
rgb(9, 208, 199)
HSL
hsl(177, 92%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(177 4% 18%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.4% 0.133 189.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3722 0.8036 0.7771)
HSV
hsv(177, 96%, 82%)
LAB
lab(75.63% -43.64 -7.61)
LCH
lch(75.63% 44.29 189.89)
CMYK
cmyk(96%, 0%, 4%, 18%)

Etymology

Hot
adjective

Old English hāt, of high temperature — applied metaphorically to color since the eighteenth century for warm hues at high saturation. Hot pink, hot red: the implication is luminous intensity combined with thermal warmth. Sits in the bright-and-warm corner of the grid, alongside burning and vivid.

Smock
modifier

Old English smoc, loose-shift-or-shepherd's-smock. As a color modifier, smock implies a shepherd's-smock-and-artist's-smock-and-pleated quality, the visual register of English-shepherd's-smock-and-artist's-smock hand-shepherd's-smock-and-artist's-smock-and-pleated English-shepherd's-smock-and-artist's-smock-and-Sussex-Surrey-rural smock-and-shepherd's-smock surfaces under English-shepherd's-smock-and-artist's-smock-and-Sussex-Surrey-rural Sussex-Downs-and-Surrey-village shepherd-and-painter-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to frock and tunic in usage.

Seafoam
noun

The pale, slightly translucent green-blue of foam on a breaking wave — light scattered through micron-scale air bubbles in salt water, with a touch of the sea's color showing through. Seafoam green refers specifically to that desaturated tint: a soft, very pale green-blue with the optical lightness of small bubbles in motion. Lighter than mint, cooler than celadon.

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.

#09d0c7
Original
#c3c4c7
Protanopia
#acb3c8
Deuteranopia
#00d6cd
Tritanopia
#a5a5a5
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).
Failon White
1.93:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
10.86:1

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
##09D0C7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3722 0.8036 0.7771)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.133

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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