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Smooth Baldr Verdigris

#48b7b8
Notes

Smooth Baldr Verdigris (#48B7B8) 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 (181°, 44%, 50%) 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
#48b7b8
RGB
rgb(72, 183, 184)
HSL
hsl(181, 44%, 50%)
HWB
hwb(181 28% 28%)
OKLCH
oklch(71.7% 0.100 196.0)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4064 0.7083 0.7165)
HSV
hsv(181, 61%, 72%)
LAB
lab(68.54% -30.68 -9.90)
LCH
lch(68.54% 32.24 197.88)
CMYK
cmyk(61%, 1%, 0%, 28%)

Etymology

Smooth
adjective

Old English smōþ, level, polished — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous without texture or break. Smooth tan, smooth gray: moderate saturation combined with optical evenness. Sits in the crisp-bucket alongside even.

Baldr
modifier

Old Norse Baldr, fair-and-shining-god-of-light. As a color modifier, baldr implies a fair-and-shining-god-of-light quality, the visual register of Norse-Baldr-and-Breidablik-hall hand-fair-and-shining-god-of-light Norse-Baldr-and-Breidablik-hall-and-mistletoe-fall baldr-and-fair-and-shining-god-of-light surfaces under Norse-Baldr-and-Breidablik-hall-and-mistletoe-fall Asgard-pantheon-and-Hel-descent fair-radiance-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to odin and freya 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.

#48b7b8
Original
#acafb8
Protanopia
#9aa2b9
Deuteranopia
#00bdb7
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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
2.40:1
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
8.74:1

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
##48B7B8
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4064 0.7083 0.7165)
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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