Burning Tourmaline
Burning Tourmaline (#42D89C) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (156°, 66%, 55%) 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 magenta. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
The progressive participle of burn — used as a color modifier for hues that read as actively luminous, as if combustion is in progress. Burning red, burning orange: the implication is high saturation combined with thermal heat. Sits in the bright-and-warm corner alongside hot and flame. Slightly more active than smoldering.
A boron silicate mineral that crystallizes in nearly every color depending on its trace elements — green tourmaline (verdelite) is the chromium and vanadium-bearing variety, mined principally in Brazil, Madagascar, and Maine. The color refers to a faceted green tourmaline: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the high refractive index of a quality cut gem. Cooler than emerald, warmer than aquamarine.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.