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Cool Agua

#386f60
Notes

Cool Agua (#386F60) is a deep teal 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 (164°, 33%, 33%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. 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
#386f60
RGB
rgb(56, 111, 96)
HSL
hsl(164, 33%, 33%)
HWB
hwb(164 22% 56%)
OKLCH
oklch(49.9% 0.064 173.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.2734 0.4302 0.3791)
HSV
hsv(164, 50%, 44%)
LAB
lab(42.84% -22.20 2.75)
LCH
lch(42.84% 22.37 172.93)
CMYK
cmyk(50%, 0%, 14%, 56%)

Etymology

Cool
adjective

Old English cōl, of low temperature — used as a color modifier as the complement to warm. Cool gray, cool blue: the optical impression of a slight blue-green shift, even within otherwise warm or neutral hues. Sits across the crisp, hushed, pale, and neutral buckets.

Agua
noun

The Spanish word for water — used in agua fresca, agua marina (sea water), and the pale blue-green tile of Andalusian fountains. The color refers to a Sevillian agua-tile fountain: a soft, slightly cool pale blue-green with the high gloss of fired Andalusian ceramic.

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.

#386f60
Original
#6c695f
Protanopia
#636361
Deuteranopia
#23706b
Tritanopia
#626262
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).
AAon White
5.82:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon Black
3.61:1

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
##386F60
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.2734 0.4302 0.3791)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.064

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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