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Refreshing Celadon

#aaf7cc
Notes

Refreshing Celadon (#AAF7CC) 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 (146°, 83%, 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#aaf7cc
RGB
rgb(170, 247, 204)
HSL
hsl(146, 83%, 82%)
HWB
hwb(146 67% 3%)
OKLCH
oklch(91.4% 0.096 159.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7325 0.9605 0.8118)
HSV
hsv(146, 31%, 97%)
LAB
lab(91.43% -32.38 13.23)
LCH
lch(91.43% 34.98 157.78)
CMYK
cmyk(31%, 0%, 17%, 3%)

Etymology

Refreshing
adjective

Old French refreschir, to make fresh again — present-participle of refresh. As a color modifier, refreshing implies a clear-and-cool-and-revitalizing quality, the crisp color of Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air-and-cool-water revitalization. Sits at the crisp-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fresh and bracing in usage.

Celadon
noun

The pale-green iron-ash glaze fired on Chinese and Korean stoneware since the Han dynasty — Goryeo celadon and Longquan ware reaching their peak between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. The color refers to a glazed Goryeo bowl in display lighting: a soft, slightly muted green-blue with the high shine of vitrified silica. Cooler than jade, warmer than seafoam, with the museum weight of a ceramic tradition prized in East Asian imperial courts.

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.

#aaf7cc
Original
#f5ecca
Protanopia
#e8e3ce
Deuteranopia
#9af6eb
Tritanopia
#e4e4e4
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
1.24:1
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
16.89:1

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
##AAF7CC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7325 0.9605 0.8118)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.096

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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