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Reposeful Cappadocia

#b9abec
Notes

Reposeful Cappadocia (#B9ABEC) is a soft indigo with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (253°, 63%, 80%) 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 yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#b9abec
RGB
rgb(185, 171, 236)
HSL
hsl(253, 63%, 80%)
HWB
hwb(253 67% 7%)
OKLCH
oklch(77.6% 0.093 294.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7161 0.6725 0.9071)
HSV
hsv(253, 28%, 93%)
LAB
lab(73.22% 18.28 -30.69)
LCH
lch(73.22% 35.73 300.78)
CMYK
cmyk(22%, 28%, 0%, 7%)

Etymology

Reposeful
adjective

Latin repōnere, to put back — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, reposeful implies a clear-and-restful-and-still quality, the calm color of pre-modern monastic cloister-and-refectory meditative-and-silent interior architecture. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to peaceful and placid in usage.

Cappadocia
noun

Central Anatolian volcanic-tuff region in Turkey, famous for its Hittite-era nazar (evil-eye) amulets cast in deep-cobalt-blue glass. Cappadocia color refers to a hand-blown Cappadocian nazar glass disc on a Göreme bazaar stall: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the glossy finish of cobalt-and-iron-flux Anatolian glassmaking. Distinct from the same region's pale-tuff stone formations.

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.

#b9abec
Original
#9cb4ef
Protanopia
#9db3ea
Deuteranopia
#afb5c2
Tritanopia
#b3b3b3
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
2.08:1
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
10.10:1

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
##B9ABEC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7161 0.6725 0.9071)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.093

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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