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Antiseptic Past Turquoise

#2db3bf
Notes

Antiseptic Past Turquoise (#2DB3BF) 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 (185°, 62%, 46%) 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
#2db3bf
RGB
rgb(45, 179, 191)
HSL
hsl(185, 62%, 46%)
HWB
hwb(185 18% 25%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.3% 0.110 204.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3519 0.6920 0.7402)
HSV
hsv(185, 76%, 75%)
LAB
lab(66.94% -30.45 -16.21)
LCH
lch(66.94% 34.50 208.03)
CMYK
cmyk(76%, 6%, 0%, 25%)

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.

Past
modifier

Old English passed, gone-by. As a color modifier, past implies a memory-and-faded-time quality, the visual register of vintage-and-period multi-decade faded-and-storied memory-laden period-correct-faded surfaces under multi-decade faded-and-storied period light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to yore and eld in usage.

Turquoise
noun

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.

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.

#2db3bf
Original
#a4abc0
Protanopia
#909dbf
Deuteranopia
#00bbb6
Tritanopia
#979797
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
2.53:1
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
8.31:1

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
##2DB3BF
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3519 0.6920 0.7402)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.110

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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