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Elfin Mauritius

#789f9b
Notes

Elfin Mauritius (#789F9B) 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 (174°, 17%, 55%) 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#789f9b
RGB
rgb(120, 159, 155)
HSL
hsl(174, 17%, 55%)
HWB
hwb(174 47% 38%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.3% 0.043 188.4)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5021 0.6192 0.6070)
HSV
hsv(174, 25%, 62%)
LAB
lab(62.64% -14.14 -2.26)
LCH
lch(62.64% 14.32 189.07)
CMYK
cmyk(25%, 0%, 3%, 38%)

Etymology

Elfin
adjective

Old English ælf, elf — adjectival suffix -in. As a color modifier, elfin implies a pale-and-small-and-mischievous-magical quality, the pale color of Tolkien-and-Lord-of-the-Rings and Pre-Raphaelite-painting elf-and-supernatural fey-and-magical iconography. Sits at the pale-and-ethereal end of the grid, parallel to fairylike and sylphine in usage.

Mauritius
noun

The Indian Ocean island east of Madagascar — and the saturated turquoise of Mauritian lagoon water at Le Morne and Tamarin Bay. Mauritius color refers to a Mauritian lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical clarity of warm Indian Ocean water.

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.

#789f9b
Original
#9b9b9b
Protanopia
#93959c
Deuteranopia
#6ca19e
Tritanopia
#969696
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
2.90:1
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
7.23:1

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
##789F9B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5021 0.6192 0.6070)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.043

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.

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