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Stable Glauque

#3fb9e0
Notes

Stable Glauque (#3FB9E0) 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 (195°, 72%, 56%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#3fb9e0
RGB
rgb(63, 185, 224)
HSL
hsl(195, 72%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(195 25% 12%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.5% 0.119 223.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3915 0.7157 0.8622)
HSV
hsv(195, 72%, 88%)
LAB
lab(70.27% -20.97 -29.23)
LCH
lch(70.27% 35.97 234.34)
CMYK
cmyk(72%, 17%, 0%, 12%)

Etymology

Stable
adjective

Latin stabilis, standing-firm — sharing root with stand. As a color modifier, stable implies a clear-and-firm-and-unchanging quality where the hue carries the visual register of resistant-to-modulation-and-fade pigmentation. Sits at the crisp-and-firm end of the grid, parallel to steady and settled in usage.

Glauque
noun

The French adjective for gray-blue-green — borrowed from the Greek glaukos, the epithet of the goddess Athena's eyes (glaukōpis). Used in French color vocabulary for the cold gray-blue of stormy seas and aged metal patina. The color refers to a cold Atlantic morning at Pointe du Raz: a soft, slightly cool deep gray-blue-green.

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.

#3fb9e0
Original
#a3b5e2
Protanopia
#8da5e0
Deuteranopia
#00c5c6
Tritanopia
#a2a2a2
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
2.28:1
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
9.23:1

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
##3FB9E0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3915 0.7157 0.8622)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.119

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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