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Healthful Stalk Verdigris

#48b3b0
Notes

Healthful Stalk Verdigris (#48B3B0) 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 (178°, 43%, 49%) 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
#48b3b0
RGB
rgb(72, 179, 176)
HSL
hsl(178, 43%, 49%)
HWB
hwb(178 28% 30%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.5% 0.097 192.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4007 0.6929 0.6865)
HSV
hsv(178, 60%, 70%)
LAB
lab(67.09% -30.98 -7.63)
LCH
lch(67.09% 31.91 193.84)
CMYK
cmyk(60%, 0%, 2%, 30%)

Etymology

Healthful
adjective

Old English hǣlth, health — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, healthful implies a clear-and-vital-and-wholesome quality where the hue carries the visual register of fresh-air-and-sunlight outdoor health-promoting environment. Sits at the crisp-and-wholesome end of the grid, parallel to salubrious and wholesome in usage.

Stalk
modifier

Old English stealcung, to-walk-stealthily. As a color modifier, stalk implies a deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked quality, the visual register of Highland-stalker-and-stag-stalk hand-deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked Highland-stalker-and-stag-and-tracker stalked-and-deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked surfaces under Highland-stalker-and-stag-and-tracker heather-moor-and-corrie-and-deer-forest tracked-and-stealthy-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to prowl and creep 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.

#48b3b0
Original
#a9abb0
Protanopia
#989eb1
Deuteranopia
#00b8b2
Tritanopia
#9c9c9c
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
2.51:1
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
8.35:1

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
##48B3B0
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4007 0.6929 0.6865)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.097

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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