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Honest Shawl Lazuli

#48adb7
Notes

Honest Shawl Lazuli (#48ADB7) 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 (185°, 44%, 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#48adb7
RGB
rgb(72, 173, 183)
HSL
hsl(185, 44%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(185 28% 28%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.3% 0.094 204.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3922 0.6698 0.7101)
HSV
hsv(185, 61%, 72%)
LAB
lab(65.50% -26.05 -13.89)
LCH
lch(65.50% 29.53 208.07)
CMYK
cmyk(61%, 5%, 0%, 28%)

Etymology

Honest
adjective

Latin honestus, honorable — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as straightforward and unembellished, the working browns and grays of vernacular architecture rather than the polished shades of court fashion. Honest brown, honest gray: moderate saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside plain and frank.

Shawl
modifier

Persian shāl, long-folded-wrap. As a color modifier, shawl implies a Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-folded-wrap quality, the visual register of Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-shawl hand-Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-folded-wrap Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-shawl-and-Norwich-and-Paisley-loom shawl-and-Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-folded-wrap surfaces under Persian-Kashmiri-and-paisley-shawl-and-Norwich-and-Paisley-loom Mughal-Kashmir-and-Norwich-and-Paisley-loom paisley-shawl-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to stole and sash in usage.

Lazuli
noun

Passerina amoena, the lazuli bunting — a North American songbird whose males display saturated deep-blue plumage with white wing bars and chestnut breasts. Named for the gemstone (lapis lazuli) the bird's plumage resembles. The color refers to a male lazuli bunting in breeding plumage: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue.

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.

#48adb7
Original
#a0a6b8
Protanopia
#8f9ab7
Deuteranopia
#00b4b0
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
2.65:1
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
7.94:1

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
##48ADB7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3922 0.6698 0.7101)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.094

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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