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Steady Variscite

#abdfa0
Notes

Steady Variscite (#ABDFA0) is a soft green with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (110°, 50%, 75%) 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 violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#abdfa0
RGB
rgb(171, 223, 160)
HSL
hsl(110, 50%, 75%)
HWB
hwb(110 63% 13%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.2% 0.101 140.2)
HSV
hsv(110, 28%, 87%)
LAB
lab(83.95% -28.47 25.61)
LCH
lch(83.95% 38.29 138.03)
CMYK
cmyk(23%, 0%, 28%, 13%)

Etymology

Steady
adjective

Old English stede, place, position — drifted to mean firm and unmoving. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as reliable rather than dramatic. Steady gray, steady green: moderate saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits in the crisp-bucket center alongside settled.

Variscite
noun

A hydrated aluminum phosphate mineral — yellow-green to blue-green in color, mined principally in Utah and Australia. Often confused with low-grade turquoise. The color refers to a polished variscite cabochon: a soft, slightly muted yellow-green with the matte finish of opaque mineral. Cooler than prehnite.

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.

#abdfa0
Original
#e3d49c
Protanopia
#dacfa3
Deuteranopia
#a8dbce
Tritanopia
#cfcfcf
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
1.52:1
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
13.79:1

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