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Plainspoken Taurus Mint

#9afcf3
Notes

Plainspoken Taurus Mint (#9AFCF3) is a soft teal with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (174°, 94%, 80%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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
#9afcf3
RGB
rgb(154, 252, 243)
HSL
hsl(174, 94%, 80%)
HWB
hwb(174 60% 1%)
OKLCH
oklch(92.8% 0.094 188.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6934 0.9785 0.9510)
HSV
hsv(174, 39%, 99%)
LAB
lab(93.00% -30.86 -4.78)
LCH
lch(93.00% 31.23 188.81)
CMYK
cmyk(39%, 0%, 4%, 1%)

Etymology

Plainspoken
adjective

English compound plain + spoken — past-participle of speak. As a color modifier, plainspoken implies a clear-and-direct-and-straightforward quality where the hue carries the visual register of unembellished-honest declaration. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to candid and direct in usage.

Taurus
modifier

Latin taurus, bull-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, taurus implies a bull-and-earth-sign-and-Venus-ruled-fixed-earth quality, the visual register of Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus hand-bull-and-earth-sign-and-Venus-ruled-fixed-earth Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus-and-Pleiades-cluster taurus-and-bull-and-earth-sign surfaces under Mesopotamian-bull-and-Greek-Taurus-and-Pleiades-cluster spring-and-April-and-May fixed-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to aries and gemini 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.

#9afcf3
Original
#f2f2f3
Protanopia
#e1e6f4
Deuteranopia
#73fff9
Tritanopia
#e7e7e7
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
1.19:1
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
17.59:1

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
##9AFCF3
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6934 0.9785 0.9510)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.094

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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