Stained Limonium
Stained Limonium (#203D96) is a true blue 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 (225°, 65%, 36%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old French desteindre, to discolor — past-participle of stain. As a color modifier, stained implies a deep-pigment-and-permanent quality where the hue has bonded with the substrate fiber. Sits at the deep-and-pigmented end of the grid, parallel to dyed and suffused in usage.
The genus Limonium — sea-lavender or statice, salt-tolerant coastal-marsh perennials with sprays of papery blue, purple, or white flower heads. The color refers to a fresh L. latifolium in late summer: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte papery finish of dried-feeling flower heads.
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.