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Refreshing Moot Lagoon

#21bfd6
Notes

Refreshing Moot Lagoon (#21BFD6) 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 (188°, 73%, 48%) 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#21bfd6
RGB
rgb(33, 191, 214)
HSL
hsl(188, 73%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(188 13% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(74.0% 0.123 210.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3575 0.7381 0.8268)
HSV
hsv(188, 85%, 84%)
LAB
lab(71.17% -30.12 -22.44)
LCH
lch(71.17% 37.56 216.68)
CMYK
cmyk(85%, 11%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Refreshing
adjective

Old French refreschir, to make fresh again — present-participle of refresh. As a color modifier, refreshing implies a clear-and-cool-and-revitalizing quality, the crisp color of Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air-and-cool-water revitalization. Sits at the crisp-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fresh and bracing in usage.

Moot
modifier

Old English mōt, meeting-or-debate-point. As a color modifier, moot implies a debated-and-suspended-and-undecided quality, the visual register of Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court-moot hand-argued-and-suspended Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-medieval-moot-court witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court-and-shire-court mooted-and-debated surfaces under Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court oak-bench-and-vellum debate-hall-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.

#21bfd6
Original
#acb8d7
Protanopia
#95a7d6
Deuteranopia
#00c9c6
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.21:1
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
9.49:1

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
##21BFD6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3575 0.7381 0.8268)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.123

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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