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Easy Bayou

#48adb3
Notes

Easy Bayou (#48ADB3) 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 (183°, 43%, 49%) 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
#48adb3
RGB
rgb(72, 173, 179)
HSL
hsl(183, 43%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(183 28% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.1% 0.093 200.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3922 0.6698 0.6956)
HSV
hsv(183, 60%, 70%)
LAB
lab(65.37% -27.21 -11.86)
LCH
lch(65.37% 29.68 203.56)
CMYK
cmyk(60%, 3%, 0%, 30%)

Etymology

Easy
adjective

Old French aisié, comfortable, at rest — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as visually undemanding. Easy beige, easy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical restfulness. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside calm and settled.

Bayou
noun

A slow-moving body of water in the Mississippi-Louisiana wetland — particularly the Atchafalaya Basin and Cajun Country swamps. Bayou color refers to typical Louisiana bayou water: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical complexity of tannin-stained slow-moving freshwater under cypress canopy.

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.

#48adb3
Original
#a1a6b4
Protanopia
#9099b4
Deuteranopia
#00b3af
Tritanopia
#989898
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
2.66:1
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
7.90:1

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
##48ADB3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3922 0.6698 0.6956)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.093

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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