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Tinted Estuary

#8aa995
Notes

Tinted Estuary (#8AA995) is a true 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°, 15%, 60%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#8aa995
RGB
rgb(138, 169, 149)
HSL
hsl(141, 15%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(141 54% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.6% 0.045 156.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5652 0.6592 0.5898)
HSV
hsv(141, 18%, 66%)
LAB
lab(66.48% -14.74 6.81)
LCH
lch(66.48% 16.24 155.19)
CMYK
cmyk(18%, 0%, 12%, 34%)

Etymology

Tinted
adjective

Latin tīnctus, dyed — past-participle of tint. As a color modifier, tinted implies a pale-and-faintly-colored quality where the hue carries the visual register of base-white-or-neutral lightly-mixed-with-pigment surface. Sits at the pale-and-faintly-colored end of the grid, parallel to tinged and pastel in usage.

Estuary
noun

The mixing zone where freshwater rivers meet saltwater seas — the Chesapeake, the Thames, the Hudson — environments of unique salinity and biodiversity. Estuary color refers to mid-depth estuary water at high tide: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical complexity of brackish 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.

#8aa995
Original
#a9a494
Protanopia
#a3a096
Deuteranopia
#85a8a3
Tritanopia
#a1a1a1
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
2.56:1
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
8.19:1

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
##8AA995
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5652 0.6592 0.5898)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.045

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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