Liquid Glass
液态玻璃
Aliases:液态玻璃苹果新玻璃厚玻璃折射玻璃透镜效果Liquid Glassrefractive glass UI
What is it
Thick refractive glass layers, specular highlights and liquid morphing as a functional overlay look. The glass is a thick lens — it bends content beneath and reflects the room, with edge lensing distortion. Volume and fluidity of the material are the point.
Design spec
Typography
System sans, slightly lighter weight on glass
Color
Hue inherited from the content beneath, speculars near-white
Border
1px translucent white rims suggesting refraction edges
Shadow
Top inset specular plus a wide soft outer shadow
Spacing
20px+ radii or pills, controls on a separate floating layer
Motion
250–400ms ease-out refraction shifts and specular slide; honour prefers-reduced-motion
States
Hover slides the specular along the rim and scales slightly; focus shows a visible white ring; active lowers refraction; disabled loses opacity and speculars; error tints refraction red, fading colour only
Style in action
The same page, ready to useExplore refraction opens material sampling. Adjust material, thickness and angle, preview live and save a recipe. Optics, Materials and Pricing reveal content; refraction/speculars are web approximations, not physical optical simulation.
Full-page preview · interact directly
What to look for
- 01Use Lumen’s original navigation and primary CTAs; inspect content and return paths, not just click notices.
- 02Complete the Lumen task, then change inputs or undo and inspect the matching result/state.
- 03Check reflow, focus and validation with keyboard and 390px / 320px viewports; distinguish toolbar reload from in-page clearing and inspect reset-on-reload boundaries.
✓ When to use
- Navigation, toolbars and overlays that must share the system material language
- Over colorful photos or rich content worth refracting
- When you want the volume of a thick glass slab, not a thin veil
✕ When not to use
- Long-form reading where refraction and highlights keep interrupting
- Performance-sensitive or older devices — live refraction is expensive
- Light frosted layering only — glassmorphism is cheaper and clearer
Variants
Sheet lens
片状透镜
Large thick slabs with obvious edge lensing
Button capsule
胶囊按钮
Small capsule controls with concentrated speculars
Full panel
全幅面板
Sidebar- or toolbar-scale glass that absorbs ambient color
Implementation
backdrop-filter: blur() saturate()box-shadow: inset 高光 + 外投影border: 1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.5)background: rgba(255,255,255,0.12)border-radius: 999pxThickness comes from three layers: low-opacity fill + backdrop-filter blur(20px) saturate(180%) + an inset top specular and a darker inset bottom edge. Edge lensing is approximated with a thicker translucent white rim plus a faint tint of the magnified backdrop. True refraction needs SVG filters or canvas; on the web, speculars and saturation sell it. Glass must float over colorful content. Dark mode darkens the fill and keeps the speculars.
Agent prompts
Four prompt layers run from “what it is” all the way to a ready-to-run task. On the Agent task layer you can stack a visual style and extra requirements, then copy it to your coding agent in one click.
Build a complete Lumen page in this style, extending the original hero into content, concrete operations and return paths rather than isolated controls or a partial demo. Preserve brand, hero copy, assets, composition, tokens and all variants. The current YAML preview is authoritative for the brand, original navigation and CTAs; never substitute a generic marketing template. Keep Lumen’s peach/violet/blue gradient, CSS mountain scene, 22px glass cards, blur(20px) saturate(180%) and upper highlight/lower edge. The workbench uses a 36px specimen, a grid/stripe/ring optical backdrop and double highlight rims. Clear blurs at 0.22 times depth, Frost at depth plus 12px, and Prism at 0.5 times depth with colored reflections. Depth also changes elevation/shadow; ambient angle changes the background and specular band, without new SVG displacement refraction or floating navigation. Depth/highlights/refraction remain the current readable CSS approximation. Reuse current preview.tokens: background linear-gradient(145deg,#FF9A8B 0%,#A18CD1 45%,#6DD5FA 100%); foreground #FFFFFF; accent rgba(255,255,255,.92) / #1A1030; card rgba(255,255,255,.14); border rgba(255,255,255,.5); radius 22px; font SF Pro Display, Helvetica Neue, PingFang SC, sans-serif; card shadow inset 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.7), inset 0 -1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,.15), 0 8px 24px rgba(0,0,0,.18). Use generic-style-pages.css’s existing workspace dark/variants selectors rather than redrawing the hero from generic historical variants; retain each rendered visual panel’s local highlights, gradients and shadows. Full-page operations: Explore refraction opens material sampling. Adjust material, thickness and angle, preview live and save a recipe. Optics, Materials and Pricing reveal content; refraction/speculars are web approximations, not physical optical simulation. Share one renderer between static covers, the detail experience and /style-scenes/liquid-glass/ (English /en/style-scenes/liquid-glass/). Static covers contain no nested live buttons; the detail experience enables the same page’s semantic controls and brand continuation in an independent document. Original navigation and CTAs reach actual content or workflows, not placeholder links, color-only changes or one-line toasts. Interaction state lives only in this page’s memory. Reload, toolbar reset and mode changes restore initial state; do not use localStorage or sessionStorage. In-page clear/reset undoes this visit’s operations without implying cross-page or persistent saves. Provide return, cancel or clear/reset paths and disclose the page-memory state boundary; never fake real payments, email, login, AI or cloud sync. Reflow desktop, 390px and 320px layouts with readable text and usable targets rather than shrinking the desktop page. Give controls accessible names, keyboard access and visible focus; overlays close and return focus, validation/results are announced; respect prefers-reduced-motion. Add no dependencies. Check both languages, original navigation/CTAs, concrete results, return/reset and narrow reflow; report checks actually run and pending items, never requirements as passed results. Additional requirements: - Dark mode support - Respect prefers-reduced-motion - No new dependencies - Run existing checks and list modified files
Hand to your coding agent — stack a style and extra requirements on top
Related concepts
A visual language that expresses floating layers as frosted glass: a blurred backdrop (backdrop-filter), a low-opacity fill and a thin white rim of light. Panels literally reveal the vivid background beneath them, so the style is about depth — it only works over rich, colorful content worth revealing.
StylesSimilarA visual language that borrows real-world materials and physical forms for digital controls: leather stitching, wood grain, brushed metal, glass gloss. Buttons look pressable, switches look like levers — highlights, shadows and bevels make "what it looks like" teach "how it works".
StylesSimilarAn atmosphere built from large flowing gradient blooms: teal, violet and blue blurred blobs drift and merge across the background while the foreground stays minimal. Color is the protagonist — soft, cross-hue, aurora-like transitions that give the interface breath and warmth.
StylesUsed withA horizontal navigation bar pinned to the top of the page: brand on the left, primary links in the middle, search, actions and avatar on the right. It is the front door of a site — the 3–7 most important destinations compressed into one strip, folding into a hamburger menu on mobile. Usually kept visible with position: sticky.
ComponentsAffectsA dialog rendered above the page with a translucent backdrop that interrupts the current flow and demands a task or decision first. The backdrop blocks interaction with the underlying page and focus is temporarily trapped inside — the most disruptive of the overlay containers.
ComponentsAffectsA clickable block that triggers one clear action — the most basic interactive element of any interface. Fill, outline and ghost styles rank primary against secondary actions; presses give instant sink-in feedback, and a busy state disables further clicks to prevent double submission.
ComponentsAffectsNot to be confused with
Glassmorphism is thin frosted blur (a veil of blur); liquid-glass is a thick refractive lens with edge distortion and speculars.

