Whirlpool

#a5d8cd

A cyan that is nearly neutral — the hue shows only against a true grey. It is very light — it works as a page background, not as text.

Hex

#a5d8cd

RGB

165, 216, 205

OKLCh

84.4% 0.055 180.2°

CIELAB (D50)

82.5, -18.8, -0.2

What is true of this colour, and of no other

  • 9 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it.
  • It uses only 36% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
  • As text on white it measures APCA Lc 26.3; on black, Lc -76.7. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
  • Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
  • protanopia and deuteranopia and tritanopia shift it by ΔE00 16.6 and 18.0 and 26.5 — no red cone.

Text on this colour

White text

1.58:1 — fails AA

Black text

13.30:1 — passes AA

Black text is the better of the two at13.30:1. That is enough for body text.

As text on white, it needs to change

#4f8076 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.

Try it against your own background

The same colour, with one cone missing

As you see it

#a5d8cd

protanopia

#d3d3cd · ΔE00 16.6

deuteranopia

#cbcbce · ΔE00 18.0

tritanopia

#c1c1ff · ΔE00 26.5

Run a whole palette through all three

The twelve nearest named colours

Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isLolly Ice at ΔE00 0.635: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.

  • Lolly IceΔE00 0.635 · #a6dad0
  • RefreshΔE00 1.063 · #a1d4c8
  • Yucca CreamΔE00 1.294 · #a1d7c9
  • Aqua GlowΔE00 1.555 · #9dd5c8
  • Sparkling MintΔE00 1.588 · #a4ddd3
  • Jaded CloudsΔE00 1.672 · #aeddd3
  • Sky Blue ViewΔE00 1.753 · #a2dcd3
  • PrismΔE00 1.771 · #aadccd
  • ScandalΔE00 1.987 · #add9d1
  • VidaliaΔE00 2.118 · #a1ddd4
  • BrillianteΔE00 2.138 · #a3dad4
  • Capri Water BlueΔE00 2.323 · #abe2d6

12 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.