Holographic Absinthe
Holographic Absinthe (#40AF15) is a true green with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (103°, 79%, 38%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Greek hólos (whole) and graphé (writing) — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, holographic implies a saturated-and-multi-angle-shifting quality, the bright color of holographic-credit-card and trading-card dichroic-film 3D-image-reflection. Sits at the bright-and-shifting end of the grid, parallel to iridescent and prismatic in usage.
The high-proof distilled spirit flavored with Artemisia absinthium (wormwood) — banned across most of Europe and North America from 1915 to the early 2000s, made famous by la fée verte (the green fairy) of Belle Époque Paris. The color refers to fresh-poured absinthe in a flute: a saturated, slightly cool deep yellow-green with the optical clarity of high-proof anise spirit.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
This color is chromatic enough that authoring it as P3 native (instead of clamping to sRGB) gives a perceptibly more saturated render on wide-gamut displays — modern Macs, iPhones, iPads, and most recent OLED laptops.