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Calm Sencha

#51b995
Notes

Calm Sencha (#51B995) is a true teal with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (159°, 43%, 52%) 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
#51b995
RGB
rgb(81, 185, 149)
HSL
hsl(159, 43%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(159 32% 27%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.4% 0.111 167.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4286 0.7165 0.5928)
HSV
hsv(159, 56%, 73%)
LAB
lab(68.47% -38.84 9.29)
LCH
lch(68.47% 39.94 166.55)
CMYK
cmyk(56%, 0%, 19%, 27%)

Etymology

Calm
adjective

Latin calma, heat of the day — paradoxically drifted in Italian to mean stillness. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as untroubled. Calm blue, calm gray: moderate saturation combined with optical quiet. Sits at the crisp-bucket near quiet and steady.

Sencha
noun

The Japanese steamed-leaf green tea — the most-consumed Japanese tea, distinct from matcha (powdered) and gyokuro (shaded-grown). The color refers to fresh-brewed sencha in a porcelain cup: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical clarity of steamed-leaf green-tea liquor.

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.

#51b995
Original
#b5ae93
Protanopia
#a6a297
Deuteranopia
#1dbaaf
Tritanopia
#a0a0a0
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
2.41:1
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
8.72:1

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
##51B995
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4286 0.7165 0.5928)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.111

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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