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Antiseptic Avalon Teal

#3c93ae
Notes

Antiseptic Avalon Teal (#3C93AE) 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 (194°, 49%, 46%) 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
#3c93ae
RGB
rgb(60, 147, 174)
HSL
hsl(194, 49%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(194 24% 32%)
OKLCH
oklch(62.2% 0.091 221.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3300 0.5690 0.6706)
HSV
hsv(194, 66%, 68%)
LAB
lab(56.96% -17.42 -21.83)
LCH
lch(56.96% 27.93 231.42)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 16%, 0%, 32%)

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.

Avalon
modifier

Old Welsh Afallon, island-of-apples-Arthurian-otherworld. As a color modifier, avalon implies an Arthurian-otherworld-and-island-of-apples quality, the visual register of Arthurian-Avalon-and-Glastonbury-Tor hand-Arthurian-otherworld-and-island-of-apples Arthurian-Avalon-and-Glastonbury-Tor-and-Morgan-le-Fay avalon-and-Arthurian-otherworld surfaces under Arthurian-Avalon-and-Glastonbury-Tor-and-Morgan-le-Fay Glastonbury-Tor-and-Somerset-Levels misty-otherworld-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to eden and helen in usage.

Teal
noun

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.

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.

#3c93ae
Original
#838faf
Protanopia
#7384ae
Deuteranopia
#009c9c
Tritanopia
#828282
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).
AA Largeon White
3.51:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.98:1

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
##3C93AE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3300 0.5690 0.6706)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.091

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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