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Easy Bayou

#4ea2ac
Notes

Easy Bayou (#4EA2AC) 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 (186°, 38%, 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
#4ea2ac
RGB
rgb(78, 162, 172)
HSL
hsl(186, 38%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(186 31% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.4% 0.082 205.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3912 0.6277 0.6675)
HSV
hsv(186, 55%, 67%)
LAB
lab(62.03% -22.49 -12.95)
LCH
lch(62.03% 25.95 209.93)
CMYK
cmyk(55%, 6%, 0%, 33%)

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.

#4ea2ac
Original
#979cad
Protanopia
#8891ac
Deuteranopia
#00a8a5
Tritanopia
#919191
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
2.96:1
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
7.09:1

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
##4EA2AC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3912 0.6277 0.6675)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.082

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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