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Hemmed Sash Lagoon

#38b6d6
Notes

Hemmed Sash Lagoon (#38B6D6) 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 (192°, 66%, 53%) 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
#38b6d6
RGB
rgb(56, 182, 214)
HSL
hsl(192, 66%, 53%)
HWB
hwb(192 22% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(72.2% 0.116 218.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3743 0.7039 0.8249)
HSV
hsv(192, 74%, 84%)
LAB
lab(68.86% -23.49 -25.94)
LCH
lch(68.86% 34.99 227.84)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 15%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Hemmed
adjective

Old English hem, border — past-participle of hem. As a color modifier, hemmed implies a clear-and-finished-and-bordered quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-hemmed-and-finished textile-edge. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to trim and finished in usage.

Sash
modifier

Arabic shāsh, muslin-strip-or-turban-cloth. As a color modifier, sash implies a wound-strip-and-cummerbund-and-bandolier quality, the visual register of Mughal-cummerbund-and-Spanish-fajín-sash hand-wound-strip-and-cummerbund-and-bandolier Mughal-cummerbund-and-Spanish-fajín-sash-and-Ottoman-sash sash-and-wound-strip-and-cummerbund surfaces under Mughal-cummerbund-and-Spanish-fajín-sash-and-Ottoman-sash Mughal-Delhi-and-Iberian-and-Ottoman-Topkapi wound-cloth-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to kilt and shawl 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.

#38b6d6
Original
#a2b1d8
Protanopia
#8ca1d6
Deuteranopia
#00c1c0
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.38:1
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
8.83:1

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
##38B6D6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3743 0.7039 0.8249)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.116

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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