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Quiet Pistache

#a1f9bc
Notes

Quiet Pistache (#A1F9BC) is a soft green with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (138°, 88%, 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a1f9bc
RGB
rgb(161, 249, 188)
HSL
hsl(138, 88%, 80%)
HWB
hwb(138 63% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(91.0% 0.120 153.2)
HSV
hsv(138, 35%, 98%)
LAB
lab(91.21% -38.89 21.09)
LCH
lch(91.21% 44.25 151.53)
CMYK
cmyk(35%, 0%, 24%, 2%)

Etymology

Quiet
adjective

Latin quietus, at rest — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as restrained. Quiet pink, quiet blue: low saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits across the crisp and hushed buckets where the color is present but doesn't ask for attention.

Pistache
noun

The French name for the pistachio nut — borrowed into English via the eighteenth-century pastry trade and persisting as a color name distinct from the food. Pistache refers to the soft, pale yellow-green of a French pistachio macaron rather than the deeper green of the raw nut: lighter than pistachio, cooler than celery, with the French-pâtisserie weight of a word more often seen on a Ladurée box than a plant catalog.

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

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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.

#a1f9bc
Original
#f9ecb8
Protanopia
#ebe2bf
Deuteranopia
#91f7e8
Tritanopia
#e2e2e2
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
1.25:1
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
16.79:1

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