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Neon Pistache

#42bb60
Notes

Neon Pistache (#42BB60) is a true green 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 (135°, 48%, 50%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#42bb60
RGB
rgb(66, 187, 96)
HSL
hsl(135, 48%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(135 26% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.3% 0.168 148.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4002 0.7235 0.4147)
HSV
hsv(135, 65%, 73%)
LAB
lab(67.68% -53.11 36.28)
LCH
lch(67.68% 64.32 145.66)
CMYK
cmyk(65%, 0%, 49%, 27%)

Etymology

Neon
adjective

Greek néon, new — element-name (atomic-number 10), discovered by William Ramsay in 1898. As a color modifier, neon implies a saturated-and-electric-glow quality, the bright color of Las-Vegas-and-Times-Square neon-marquee gas-discharge-tube emission. Sits at the bright-and-electric end of the grid, parallel to electric and fluorescent in usage.

Pistache
noun

The French name for the pistachio nut — borrowed into English via the eighteenth-century pastry trade and persisting as a color name distinct from the food. Pistache refers to the soft, pale yellow-green of a French pistachio macaron rather than the deeper green of the raw nut: lighter than pistachio, cooler than celery, with the French-pâtisserie weight of a word more often seen on a Ladurée box than a plant catalog.

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.

#42bb60
Original
#bdab59
Protanopia
#aea166
Deuteranopia
#18b7a6
Tritanopia
#9b9b9b
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
2.47:1
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
8.51:1

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
##42BB60
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4002 0.7235 0.4147)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.168

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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