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Refreshing Pistache

#87e8a9
Notes

Refreshing Pistache (#87E8A9) is a soft green 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 (141°, 68%, 72%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. 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
#87e8a9
RGB
rgb(135, 232, 169)
HSL
hsl(141, 68%, 72%)
HWB
hwb(141 53% 9%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.5% 0.128 154.3)
HSV
hsv(141, 42%, 91%)
LAB
lab(84.86% -42.14 21.90)
LCH
lch(84.86% 47.49 152.54)
CMYK
cmyk(42%, 0%, 27%, 9%)

Etymology

Refreshing
adjective

Old French refreschir, to make fresh again — present-participle of refresh. As a color modifier, refreshing implies a clear-and-cool-and-revitalizing quality, the crisp color of Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air-and-cool-water revitalization. Sits at the crisp-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fresh and bracing in usage.

Pistache
noun

The French name for the pistachio nut — borrowed into English via the eighteenth-century pastry trade and persisting as a color name distinct from the food. Pistache refers to the soft, pale yellow-green of a French pistachio macaron rather than the deeper green of the raw nut: lighter than pistachio, cooler than celery, with the French-pâtisserie weight of a word more often seen on a Ladurée box than a plant catalog.

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.

#87e8a9
Original
#e8daa5
Protanopia
#d9d0ad
Deuteranopia
#73e6d7
Tritanopia
#cfcfcf
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
1.48:1
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
14.15:1

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