colors
Back to gallery

Antiseptic Barn Verdigris

#23a8a6
Notes

Antiseptic Barn Verdigris (#23A8A6) 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 (179°, 66%, 40%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. 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
#23a8a6
RGB
rgb(35, 168, 166)
HSL
hsl(179, 66%, 40%)
HWB
hwb(179 14% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.5% 0.107 193.3)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3196 0.6493 0.6467)
HSV
hsv(179, 79%, 66%)
LAB
lab(62.60% -33.80 -8.83)
LCH
lch(62.60% 34.93 194.64)
CMYK
cmyk(79%, 0%, 1%, 34%)

Etymology

Antiseptic
adjective

Greek anti- (against) plus sēptikós (putrefying) — adjectival suffix -ic. As a color modifier, antiseptic implies a clear-and-disinfected-and-clinical quality, the crisp color of medical-laboratory and operating-theater hand-scrub-and-sanitizer surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sterile and sanitary in usage.

Barn
modifier

Old English bere-ærn, barley-house. As a color modifier, barn implies a hay-loft-and-stable quality, the visual register of English-and-American tithe-barn-and-Pennsylvania-bank-barn timber-frame-and-stone agricultural surfaces under Midwest-and-English-rural barnyard farmstead light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to loft and mill in usage.

Verdigris
noun

The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.

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.

#23a8a6
Original
#9d9fa6
Protanopia
#8b92a7
Deuteranopia
#00ada7
Tritanopia
#8c8c8c
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
2.91:1
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
7.22:1

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
##23A8A6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3196 0.6493 0.6467)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.107

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.

Related Colors

Canvas