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Peaceful Sour Mint

#a9f2ca
Notes

Peaceful Sour Mint (#A9F2CA) 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 (147°, 74%, 81%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a9f2ca
RGB
rgb(169, 242, 202)
HSL
hsl(147, 74%, 81%)
HWB
hwb(147 66% 5%)
OKLCH
oklch(90.2% 0.091 159.9)
HSV
hsv(147, 30%, 95%)
LAB
lab(89.95% -30.72 12.16)
LCH
lch(89.95% 33.04 158.40)
CMYK
cmyk(30%, 0%, 17%, 5%)

Etymology

Peaceful
adjective

Latin pāx, peace — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, peaceful implies a clear-and-restful-and-calm quality where the hue carries the visual register of Quaker-meeting-house still-and-meditative interior atmosphere. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to serene and placid in usage.

Sour
modifier

Old English sūr, acid-or-fermented. As a color modifier, sour implies a fermented-and-puckered-and-acid quality, the visual register of sourdough-and-Bavarian-sauerkraut-sour hand-fermented-and-puckered-and-acid sourdough-and-Bavarian-sauerkraut-sour-and-Belgian-Lambic sour-and-fermented-and-puckered surfaces under sourdough-and-Bavarian-sauerkraut-sour-and-Belgian-Lambic San-Francisco-sourdough-and-Brussels-Lambic fermented-puckered-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to tart and tang 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

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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.

#a9f2ca
Original
#f0e7c8
Protanopia
#e4dfcc
Deuteranopia
#9af1e7
Tritanopia
#e0e0e0
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
1.29:1
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
16.24:1

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