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Dreamy Niloo

#9ab0ce
Notes

Dreamy Niloo (#9AB0CE) is a soft azure 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 (215°, 35%, 71%) 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 amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9ab0ce
RGB
rgb(154, 176, 206)
HSL
hsl(215, 35%, 71%)
HWB
hwb(215 60% 19%)
OKLCH
oklch(75.1% 0.050 256.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6204 0.6876 0.7971)
HSV
hsv(215, 25%, 81%)
LAB
lab(71.13% -0.90 -17.71)
LCH
lch(71.13% 17.73 267.10)
CMYK
cmyk(25%, 15%, 0%, 19%)

Etymology

Dreamy
adjective

An adjectival form of dream — used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as soft and slightly unreal. Dreamy lavender, dreamy peach: low saturation combined with optical softness and a slight romanticism. Sits at the pale-bucket alongside misty.

Niloo
noun

The Persian word for indigo plant — borrowed from Sanskrit nīla (dark blue). Niloo names the plant Indigofera tinctoria in Persian and the saturated deep blue dye it produces. The color refers to a freshly niloo-dyed Persian carpet: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the matte finish of plant-and-mordant dye.

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.

#9ab0ce
Original
#a6b1cf
Protanopia
#a0accd
Deuteranopia
#8cb6ba
Tritanopia
#adadad
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
2.22:1
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
9.48:1

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
##9AB0CE
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6204 0.6876 0.7971)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.050

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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