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Spotless Polar

#10a9d5
Notes

Spotless Polar (#10A9D5) 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 (193°, 86%, 45%) 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
#10a9d5
RGB
rgb(16, 169, 213)
HSL
hsl(193, 86%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(193 6% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.4% 0.128 225.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3029 0.6529 0.8179)
HSV
hsv(193, 92%, 84%)
LAB
lab(64.39% -20.26 -32.32)
LCH
lch(64.39% 38.15 237.92)
CMYK
cmyk(92%, 21%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Spotless
adjective

Old English spott (spot) plus suffix -less. As a color modifier, spotless implies a clear-and-unmarked quality where the hue carries no contaminating speck or stain. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to pristine and unblemished in usage.

Polar
noun

Of the polar — the ice caps and the meltwater seas at the high latitudes. The color refers to polar sea ice on a clear day at the height of summer melt: a soft, slightly green-shifted very pale blue with the optical brightness of bubble-rich ice. Lighter than glacier, cooler than frost, with the climatological weight of a region whose color is rapidly disappearing.

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.

#10a9d5
Original
#91a5d7
Protanopia
#7995d4
Deuteranopia
#00b6b8
Tritanopia
#8c8c8c
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
2.74:1
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
7.66:1

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
##10A9D5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3029 0.6529 0.8179)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.128

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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