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Folded Chive Lagoon

#37a8ae
Notes

Folded Chive Lagoon (#37A8AE) is a true cyan with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (183°, 52%, 45%) 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
#37a8ae
RGB
rgb(55, 168, 174)
HSL
hsl(183, 52%, 45%)
HWB
hwb(183 22% 32%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.2% 0.099 200.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3508 0.6498 0.6759)
HSV
hsv(183, 68%, 68%)
LAB
lab(63.24% -28.99 -12.32)
LCH
lch(63.24% 31.50 203.03)
CMYK
cmyk(68%, 3%, 0%, 32%)

Etymology

Folded
adjective

Old English fealdan, to fold — past-participle of fold. As a color modifier, folded implies a clear-and-creased-and-arranged quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-folded-and-neatly-arranged textile surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and trim in usage.

Chive
modifier

Latin cepa, small-onion-grass-herb. As a color modifier, chive implies a slim-grass-onion-and-spring-fresh quality, the visual register of English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive hand-slim-grass-onion-and-spring-fresh English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive-and-fines-herbes chive-and-slim-grass-onion surfaces under English-cottage-garden-and-French-bistro-chive-and-fines-herbes Sussex-cottage-and-Lyon-bouchon spring-onion-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to dill and chervil 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.

#37a8ae
Original
#9ca1af
Protanopia
#8a94af
Deuteranopia
#00aeaa
Tritanopia
#909090
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
2.85:1
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
7.37:1

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
##37A8AE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3508 0.6498 0.6759)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.099

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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