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Sifted Phosphor

#9aa188
Notes

Sifted Phosphor (#9AA188) is a true lime 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 (77°, 12%, 58%) 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9aa188
RGB
rgb(154, 161, 136)
HSL
hsl(77, 12%, 58%)
HWB
hwb(77 53% 37%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.6% 0.036 120.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6089 0.6305 0.5425)
HSV
hsv(77, 16%, 63%)
LAB
lab(65.07% -7.08 12.19)
LCH
lch(65.07% 14.09 120.14)
CMYK
cmyk(4%, 0%, 16%, 37%)

Etymology

Sifted
adjective

Old English siftan, to sift — past-participle of sift. As a color modifier, sifted implies a pale-and-fine-particle-and-uniformly-distributed quality, the pale color of baker's sifted-and-fine-flour finely-distributed-and-uniform-deposit surface-finish. Sits at the pale-and-soft end of the grid, parallel to dusted and sprinkled in usage.

Phosphor
noun

A chemical that emits light when excited by an external energy source — the green-and-yellow phosphors of cathode-ray tubes, the yellow phosphor coatings of fluorescent tubes, and the white-LED yellow phosphor over a blue LED. The color refers to a yellow-phosphor-coated LED at full brightness: a saturated, slightly cool yellow with the optical brightness of electroluminescent emission.

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.

#9aa188
Original
#a59e87
Protanopia
#a49e89
Deuteranopia
#9c9e9a
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.68:1
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
7.83:1

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
##9AA188
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6089 0.6305 0.5425)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.036

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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