Hemmed Loch
Hemmed Loch (#A0E8FE) is a soft cyan with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (194°, 98%, 81%) 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 English hem, border — past-participle of hem. As a color modifier, hemmed implies a clear-and-finished-and-bordered quality where the hue carries the visual register of carefully-hemmed-and-finished textile-edge. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to trim and finished in usage.
The Scottish word for lake (from Gaelic loch) — particularly the saturated deep blue of Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, and the highland lochs of the western Highlands. Loch color refers to Loch Lomond at midday: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue with the optical depth of cold-water highland lake.
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.