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Cool Glass Teal

#15b59f
Notes

Cool Glass Teal (#15B59F) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (172°, 79%, 40%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#15b59f
RGB
rgb(21, 181, 159)
HSL
hsl(172, 79%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(172 8% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(69.4% 0.123 179.7)
HSV
hsv(172, 88%, 71%)
LAB
lab(66.30% -42.75 0.50)
LCH
lch(66.30% 42.75 179.33)
CMYK
cmyk(88%, 0%, 12%, 29%)

Etymology

Cool
adjective

Old English cōl, of low temperature — used as a color modifier as the complement to warm. Cool gray, cool blue: the optical impression of a slight blue-green shift, even within otherwise warm or neutral hues. Sits across the crisp, hushed, pale, and neutral buckets.

Glass
modifier

Old English glæs, glass. As a color modifier, glass implies a transparent-and-vitreous quality, the visual register of Murano-and-Bohemian-glass hand-blown-and-cut crystal-and-leaded-glass Venetian-and-Bohemian glass-and-crystal surfaces under Murano-and-Bohemian-glass workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to gloss and shine in usage.

Teal
noun

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.

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.

#15b59f
Original
#ada99e
Protanopia
#9a9ba1
Deuteranopia
#00b8ae
Tritanopia
#919191
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
2.58:1
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
8.14:1

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