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Sterile Satyr Mint

#90edd4
Notes

Sterile Satyr Mint (#90EDD4) is a soft 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 (164°, 72%, 75%) 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 red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#90edd4
RGB
rgb(144, 237, 212)
HSL
hsl(164, 72%, 75%)
HWB
hwb(164 56% 7%)
OKLCH
oklch(88.1% 0.096 174.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6497 0.9202 0.8354)
HSV
hsv(164, 39%, 93%)
LAB
lab(87.61% -33.32 3.43)
LCH
lch(87.61% 33.49 174.13)
CMYK
cmyk(39%, 0%, 11%, 7%)

Etymology

Sterile
adjective

Latin sterilis, barren / not-fertile — sharing root with Greek steiros (barren). As a color modifier, sterile implies a clear-and-medical-clean-and-stripped quality, the crisp color of operating-theater surgical-environment white-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and hygienic in usage.

Satyr
modifier

Greek σάτυρος, half-goat-and-Dionysian-companion. As a color modifier, satyr implies a half-goat-and-Dionysian-revel-and-pastoral quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Satyr-and-Dionysian-revel hand-half-goat-and-Dionysian-revel-and-pastoral Hellenic-Satyr-and-Dionysian-revel-and-Pan-pipes satyr-and-half-goat-and-Dionysian-revel surfaces under Hellenic-Satyr-and-Dionysian-revel-and-Pan-pipes Bacchic-procession-and-vine-leaf-crown Dionysian-revel-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to faun and nymph in usage.

Mint
noun

The genus Mentha — peppermint, spearmint, apple mint, water mint — the cooling herb whose menthol gives it that quality at the molecular level. The color refers to fresh peppermint leaves before drying: a clean, slightly cool green with the matte finish of trichome-rich leaf surface. Lighter than basil, cooler than parsley, with the mojito-and-Pimm's association of a herb tied to summer drinks across two continents.

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.

#90edd4
Original
#e7e2d3
Protanopia
#d7d7d6
Deuteranopia
#72efe5
Tritanopia
#d7d7d7
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
1.38:1
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
15.25:1

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
##90EDD4
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6497 0.9202 0.8354)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.096

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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