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Cleansed Hollow Lagoon

#12acc9
Notes

Cleansed Hollow Lagoon (#12ACC9) 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 (190°, 84%, 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
#12acc9
RGB
rgb(18, 172, 201)
HSL
hsl(190, 84%, 43%)
HWB
hwb(190 7% 21%)
OKLCH
oklch(68.7% 0.119 215.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3099 0.6645 0.7747)
HSV
hsv(190, 91%, 79%)
LAB
lab(64.84% -25.80 -24.98)
LCH
lch(64.84% 35.92 224.07)
CMYK
cmyk(91%, 14%, 0%, 21%)

Etymology

Cleansed
adjective

Old English clǣnsian, to make clean — past-participle of cleanse. As a color modifier, cleansed implies a clear-and-purified quality where the hue has been stripped of any contaminating tint. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to fresh and pristine in usage.

Hollow
modifier

Old English holh, hollow-place. As a color modifier, hollow implies a scooped-and-empty-and-resonant quality, the visual register of bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow hand-scooped-and-empty-and-resonant bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow hollowed-and-scooped-and-empty-and-resonant surfaces under bell-and-gourd-and-tree-hollow campanile-and-harvest-and-old-oak resonant-and-empty-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to void and blank in usage.

Lagoon
noun

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.

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.

#12acc9
Original
#98a6cb
Protanopia
#8296c9
Deuteranopia
#00b6b5
Tritanopia
#8d8d8d
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
2.70:1
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
7.77:1

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
##12ACC9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3099 0.6645 0.7747)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.119

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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