colors
Back to gallery

Untroubled Hard Mint

#9ffaef
Notes

Untroubled Hard Mint (#9FFAEF) 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 (173°, 90%, 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
#9ffaef
RGB
rgb(159, 250, 239)
HSL
hsl(173, 90%, 80%)
HWB
hwb(173 62% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(92.5% 0.089 186.1)
HSV
hsv(173, 36%, 98%)
LAB
lab(92.56% -29.56 -3.32)
LCH
lch(92.56% 29.75 186.42)
CMYK
cmyk(36%, 0%, 4%, 2%)

Etymology

Untroubled
adjective

Latin turbāre, to disturb — negative-prefix un- plus past-participle of trouble. As a color modifier, untroubled implies a clear-and-calm-and-undisturbed quality where the hue carries no visual agitation. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to serene and placid in usage.

Hard
modifier

Old English heard, firm / hard. As a color modifier, hard implies a stone-and-iron-and-bone quality, the visual register of hand-hard-and-firm stone-and-iron-and-bone hard-and-firm-and-resistant tactile-hardness-and-firmness surfaces under hard-and-firm tactile-hardness light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to forged and hewn 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.

#9ffaef
Original
#f1f1ef
Protanopia
#e1e5f0
Deuteranopia
#7efef6
Tritanopia
#e6e6e6
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
1.21:1
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
17.39:1

Related Colors

Canvas