Flat Castor Mint
Flat Castor Mint (#9CFCE4) 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 (165°, 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.
Etymology
Old Norse flatr, flat / level. As a color modifier, flat implies a clear-and-evenly-spread quality where the hue carries the matte-finish visual register of unmodulated single-plane surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and even in usage.
Greek Κάστωρ, Gemini-twin-and-horseman. As a color modifier, castor implies a Gemini-twin-and-mortal-brother quality, the visual register of Gemini-Castor-and-Pollux-twin hand-Gemini-twin-and-mortal-brother Gemini-Castor-and-Pollux-twin-and-Argonaut castor-and-Gemini-twin-and-mortal-brother surfaces under Gemini-Castor-and-Pollux-twin-and-Argonaut spring-Gemini-and-Bortle-1-sky stellar-twin-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to pollux and spica in usage.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.