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Polished Amor Lagoon

#15bed7
Notes

Polished Amor Lagoon (#15BED7) is a true cyan with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (188°, 82%, 46%) 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
#15bed7
RGB
rgb(21, 190, 215)
HSL
hsl(188, 82%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(188 8% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(73.6% 0.126 211.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3451 0.7341 0.8301)
HSV
hsv(188, 90%, 84%)
LAB
lab(70.79% -30.00 -23.57)
LCH
lch(70.79% 38.15 218.15)
CMYK
cmyk(90%, 12%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

Polished
adjective

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Amor
modifier

Latin amor, love. As a color modifier, amor implies a Latin-love-and-amor-vincit-omnia quality, the visual register of Vergilian-amor-and-Catullus-amor hand-Latin-love-and-amor-vincit-omnia Vergilian-amor-and-Catullus-amor-and-Ovid-Ars-Amatoria amor-and-Latin-love surfaces under Vergilian-amor-and-Catullus-amor-and-Ovid-Ars-Amatoria Augustan-Rome-and-Renaissance-Italy Roman-love-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to vita and via in usage.

Lagoon
noun

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.

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.

#15bed7
Original
#aab7d8
Protanopia
#93a6d7
Deuteranopia
#00c8c6
Tritanopia
#9c9c9c
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
2.24:1
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
9.38:1

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
##15BED7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3451 0.7341 0.8301)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.126

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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