colors
Back to gallery

Clear Sailcloth

#606e73
Notes

Clear Sailcloth (#606E73) 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 (196°, 9%, 41%) places it in the muted 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#606e73
RGB
rgb(96, 110, 115)
HSL
hsl(196, 9%, 41%)
HWB
hwb(196 38% 55%)
OKLCH
oklch(52.8% 0.019 221.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3869 0.4297 0.4484)
HSV
hsv(196, 17%, 45%)
LAB
lab(45.46% -4.10 -4.55)
LCH
lch(45.46% 6.13 228.03)
CMYK
cmyk(17%, 4%, 0%, 55%)

Etymology

Clear
adjective

From the Latin clarus, bright, distinct — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues without haze or mixing. Clear blue sky, clear green water: the implication is moderate saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clean and true.

Sailcloth
noun

Old English segl-clāþ, sail-cloth — the cool-mid-gray hemp-and-cotton-and-flax hand-woven canvas-fabric of pre-modern English-and-American sailing-vessel sail manufacture. Sailcloth color refers to a freshly washed Royal-Navy-period hand-woven flax-canvas sail-fabric on a Portsmouth-Naval-Yard sailmaking-loft hand-cut sail-section: a balanced cool gray with the matte finish of multi-bath salt-and-tar-mordant-stained hemp-and-cotton-and-flax hand-woven naval-grade sail-canvas.

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.

#606e73
Original
#6b6d73
Protanopia
#686b73
Deuteranopia
#5b706f
Tritanopia
#6b6b6b
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).
AAon White
5.28:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
3.98:1

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
##606E73
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3869 0.4297 0.4484)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.019

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

Related Colors

Canvas