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Stable Heath

#bbe6b9
Notes

Stable Heath (#BBE6B9) is a soft green with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (117°, 47%, 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 violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#bbe6b9
RGB
rgb(187, 230, 185)
HSL
hsl(117, 47%, 81%)
HWB
hwb(117 73% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(88.3% 0.076 143.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.7669 0.8970 0.7403)
HSV
hsv(117, 20%, 90%)
LAB
lab(87.32% -22.36 17.42)
LCH
lch(87.32% 28.34 142.07)
CMYK
cmyk(19%, 0%, 20%, 10%)

Etymology

Stable
adjective

Latin stabilis, standing-firm — sharing root with stand. As a color modifier, stable implies a clear-and-firm-and-unchanging quality where the hue carries the visual register of resistant-to-modulation-and-fade pigmentation. Sits at the crisp-and-firm end of the grid, parallel to steady and settled in usage.

Heath
noun

An open uncultivated land covered by heather (Calluna), gorse (Ulex), and grass — particularly the lowland heaths of southern England. Heath color refers to a Surrey heath in early summer: a soft, slightly muted deep yellow-green with the matte finish of woody-and-grass undergrowth.

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.

#bbe6b9
Original
#e8deb6
Protanopia
#e1d9bb
Deuteranopia
#b8e3d9
Tritanopia
#dadada
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
1.39:1
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
15.13:1

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
##BBE6B9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.7669 0.8970 0.7403)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.076

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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