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Iridescent Bonaire

#20e3cb
Notes

Iridescent Bonaire (#20E3CB) 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 (173°, 78%, 51%) 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
#20e3cb
RGB
rgb(32, 227, 203)
HSL
hsl(173, 78%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(173 13% 11%)
OKLCH
oklch(82.3% 0.144 181.3)
HSV
hsv(173, 86%, 89%)
LAB
lab(81.59% -49.63 -0.94)
LCH
lch(81.59% 49.64 181.09)
CMYK
cmyk(86%, 0%, 11%, 11%)

Etymology

Iridescent
adjective

Latin Īris, rainbow — adjectival suffix -escent, named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow. As a color modifier, iridescent implies a saturated-and-multi-spectrum-shifting quality, the bright color of peacock-feather-and-soap-bubble structurally-colored-and-thin-film optical-interference patterns. Sits at the bright-and-shifting end of the grid, parallel to prismatic and holographic in usage.

Bonaire
noun

The Dutch Caribbean island — and the saturated blue-green of Bonaire's marine-park reef waters, designated the world's first national-park dive zone in 1979. Bonaire refers to the lagoon water around Klein Bonaire: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical clarity of southern Caribbean reef water.

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.

#20e3cb
Original
#d8d5ca
Protanopia
#c1c4cd
Deuteranopia
#00e7dc
Tritanopia
#b8b8b8
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
1.63:1
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
12.91:1

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