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Trustworthy Cataract

#226a85
Notes

Trustworthy Cataract (#226A85) is a deep cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (196°, 59%, 33%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#226a85
RGB
rgb(34, 106, 133)
HSL
hsl(196, 59%, 33%)
HWB
hwb(196 13% 48%)
OKLCH
oklch(49.3% 0.081 227.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2173 0.4098 0.5109)
HSV
hsv(196, 74%, 52%)
LAB
lab(41.75% -12.53 -21.30)
LCH
lch(41.75% 24.72 239.54)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 20%, 0%, 48%)

Etymology

Trustworthy
adjective

Old English trēow, trust — adjectival suffix -worthy. As a color modifier, trustworthy implies a clear-and-reliable-and-honest quality where the hue carries the visual register of confidence-deserving-and-faithful-performance design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to reliable and dependable in usage.

Cataract
noun

A large waterfall with significant volume — particularly the Cataracts of the Nile and the Iguaçu Cataract of South America. Cataract color refers to the deep blue-white of high-volume falling water at Iguaçu: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-white with the optical brightness of micron-scale air-water mixing.

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.

#226a85
Original
#5c6886
Protanopia
#4e5e85
Deuteranopia
#007273
Tritanopia
#5d5d5d
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).
AAon White
6.05:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
3.47:1

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
##226A85
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2173 0.4098 0.5109)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.081

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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