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Translucent Halo

#a9b0fa
Notes

Translucent Halo (#A9B0FA) 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 (235°, 89%, 82%) 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 yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a9b0fa
RGB
rgb(169, 176, 250)
HSL
hsl(235, 89%, 82%)
HWB
hwb(235 66% 2%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.9% 0.106 279.5)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6677 0.6893 0.9587)
HSV
hsv(235, 32%, 98%)
LAB
lab(73.80% 14.25 -37.48)
LCH
lch(73.80% 40.10 290.81)
CMYK
cmyk(32%, 30%, 0%, 2%)

Etymology

Translucent
adjective

Latin trans-lūcēre, to shine through — present-participle of translucere. As a color modifier, translucent implies a clear-and-light-passing quality where the hue allows partial light-transmission through its visual surface. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to pellucid and vitreous in usage.

Halo
noun

Greek hálōs, threshing floor — adopted into Christian iconography as the circular disc behind the head of saintly figures, traditionally rendered in ultramarine lapis-and-gold-leaf in Greek-school and Russian-school icon panels. Halo color refers to a 14th-century Russian-school Theotokos icon's halo field: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the matte finish of egg-tempera-bound ultramarine over gesso ground.

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.

#a9b0fa
Original
#9ab8fd
Protanopia
#95b3f8
Deuteranopia
#93beca
Tritanopia
#b4b4b4
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
2.04:1
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
10.28:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##A9B0FA
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6677 0.6893 0.9587)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.106

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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