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Starched Cane Verdigris

#2cacac
Notes

Starched Cane Verdigris (#2CACAC) is a true cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (180°, 59%, 42%) 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
#2cacac
RGB
rgb(44, 172, 172)
HSL
hsl(180, 59%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(180 17% 33%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.9% 0.106 194.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3388 0.6649 0.6696)
HSV
hsv(180, 74%, 67%)
LAB
lab(64.17% -32.95 -9.82)
LCH
lch(64.17% 34.38 196.60)
CMYK
cmyk(74%, 0%, 0%, 33%)

Etymology

Starched
adjective

Old English stercan, to stiffen — past-participle of starch. As a color modifier, starched implies a clear-and-stiff-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-evening-shirt-and-collar starched-and-pressed dress-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and ironed in usage.

Cane
modifier

Old French canne, reed / cane. As a color modifier, cane implies a hand-cut-bamboo-or-rattan quality, the visual register of English-and-Edwardian-and-Asian-cane hand-cut-and-woven-cane bamboo-and-rattan-and-wicker hand-cut-cane-and-rattan surfaces under English-and-Edwardian-and-Asian hand-cut-cane-and-rattan furniture-and-craft light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to bark and hemp 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.

#2cacac
Original
#a0a3ac
Protanopia
#8e96ad
Deuteranopia
#00b2ac
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
2.76:1
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
7.60:1

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
##2CACAC
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3388 0.6649 0.6696)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.106

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