A pale cyan, black text passes AA
What color is lightcyan?
lightcyan is a pale cyan: #e0ffff in hex, rgb(224 255 255). Black text on it reaches 19.92:1, passing WCAG AAA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | lightcyan |
| Hex | #e0ffff |
| RGB | rgb(224 255 255) |
| HSL | hsl(180 100% 94%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(97.8% 0.032 196.6) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | cyan-50 #ecfeff, 0.015 away in OKLab |
| White text | 1.05:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
| Black text | 19.92:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
About lightcyan
A pale cyan is the plain description of lightcyan: OKLCH lightness 97.8%, chroma 0.032, hue 196.6 degrees.
HSL and OKLCH agree on how light it is, 94% and 97.8%. Its nearest CSS named color, azure (#f0ffff), is 0.020 away in OKLab, too close to tell apart by eye.
Black text on lightcyan measures 19.92:1, past the 7:1 of WCAG AAA, while white text manages only 1.05:1. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between darkgreen and paleturquoise.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is cyan-50 (#ecfeff), 0.015 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#e0ffff] works.
Tints and shades
- #faffff
- #f5ffff
- #f0ffff
- #ebffff
- #e5ffff
- #e0ffff
- #afc8c8
- #819494
- #566363
- #2e3636
- #0b0f0f
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #e0ffff
- #7b3135
- #a8cfd0
- #421819
- #29a3a3
Recolor's generator, with lightcyan locked as swatch 1 and the seed taken from its hex, drew a complementary palette, built on the hue opposite: #7b3135, #a8cfd0, #421819, #29a3a3. Open it in Recolor.
Using lightcyan
As a text color, lightcyan on a black page gives the same 19.92:1.
.notice {
background-color: lightcyan; /* #e0ffff */
color: black; /* 19.92:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on lightcyan?
No. White text measures 1.05:1 on lightcyan, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 19.92:1 and passes.
Can lightcyan be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(97.8% 0.032 196.6), computed from #e0ffff. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to lightcyan?
Yes: azure (#f0ffff) is the nearest, 0.020 away in OKLab, then aliceblue at 0.025.