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Antiseptic Pallas Lagoon

#3ab0cf
Notes

Antiseptic Pallas Lagoon (#3AB0CF) is a true 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 (192°, 61%, 52%) 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
#3ab0cf
RGB
rgb(58, 176, 207)
HSL
hsl(192, 61%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(192 23% 19%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.5% 0.111 219.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3685 0.6808 0.7979)
HSV
hsv(192, 72%, 81%)
LAB
lab(66.86% -22.40 -25.15)
LCH
lch(66.86% 33.68 228.30)
CMYK
cmyk(72%, 15%, 0%, 19%)

Etymology

Antiseptic
adjective

Greek anti- (against) plus sēptikós (putrefying) — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, antiseptic implies a clear-and-disinfected-and-clinical quality, the crisp color of medical-laboratory and operating-theater hand-scrub-and-sanitizer surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sterile and sanitary in usage.

Pallas
modifier

Greek Παλλάς, epithet-of-Athena. As a color modifier, pallas implies an asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden quality, the visual register of Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior hand-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-and-Olbers-discovery pallas-and-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-maiden surfaces under Pallas-asteroid-and-Athena-warrior-and-Olbers-discovery asteroid-belt-and-Athenian-Acropolis warrior-goddess-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to ceres and vesta 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.

#3ab0cf
Original
#9dabd1
Protanopia
#889ccf
Deuteranopia
#00baba
Tritanopia
#999999
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
2.53:1
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
8.29:1

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
##3AB0CF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3685 0.6808 0.7979)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.111

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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