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Untroubled Toadflax

#a6b6eb
Notes

Untroubled Toadflax (#A6B6EB) is a soft blue with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (226°, 63%, 79%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a6b6eb
RGB
rgb(166, 182, 235)
HSL
hsl(226, 63%, 79%)
HWB
hwb(226 65% 8%)
OKLCH
oklch(78.3% 0.078 271.5)
HSV
hsv(226, 29%, 92%)
LAB
lab(74.55% 6.35 -28.23)
LCH
lch(74.55% 28.93 282.67)
CMYK
cmyk(29%, 23%, 0%, 8%)

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.

Toadflax
noun

Eurasian Linaria vulgaris and L. purpureasnapdragon cousins with hooded violet-and-yellow flowers naturalized across temperate roadsides and waste-ground. Toadflax color refers to a fully bloomed Linaria purpurea spike: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of dense small two-lipped snapdragon-form flowers. The Old English name refers to the linear flax-like foliage of the wild Linaria genus.

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.

#a6b6eb
Original
#a6baed
Protanopia
#a0b5ea
Deuteranopia
#94c0c8
Tritanopia
#b6b6b6
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
2.00:1
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
10.51:1

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