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Fresh Sanded Verdigris

#32a6a5
Notes

Fresh Sanded Verdigris (#32A6A5) is a true cyan with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (179°, 54%, 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
#32a6a5
RGB
rgb(50, 166, 165)
HSL
hsl(179, 54%, 42%)
HWB
hwb(179 20% 35%)
OKLCH
oklch(66.3% 0.100 194.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3388 0.6420 0.6428)
HSV
hsv(179, 70%, 65%)
LAB
lab(62.22% -31.39 -8.80)
LCH
lch(62.22% 32.60 195.67)
CMYK
cmyk(70%, 0%, 1%, 35%)

Etymology

Fresh
adjective

Old English fersc, unsalted / not stale — sharing root with German frisch. As a color modifier, fresh implies a clear-and-newly-applied quality where the hue carries the just-emerged visual register. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to crisp and new in usage.

Sanded
modifier

Old English sandian, to-sand. As a color modifier, sanded implies a hand-sanded-and-smoothed-wood quality, the visual register of Shaker-and-Mid-Century-Modern-sanded hand-sanded-and-smoothed-and-finished wood-and-stone-and-metal Shaker-and-Mid-Century-Modern hand-sanded-and-smoothed surfaces under Shaker-and-Mid-Century-Modern hand-sanded-and-smoothed workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to honed and buffed 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.

#32a6a5
Original
#9b9ea5
Protanopia
#8a91a6
Deuteranopia
#00aba5
Tritanopia
#8d8d8d
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
2.94:1
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
7.13:1

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
##32A6A5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3388 0.6420 0.6428)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.100

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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