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Direct Mangrove

#4ad6b6
Notes

Direct Mangrove (#4AD6B6) is a true teal with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (166°, 63%, 56%) 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
#4ad6b6
RGB
rgb(74, 214, 182)
HSL
hsl(166, 63%, 56%)
HWB
hwb(166 29% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(79.3% 0.128 174.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4562 0.8280 0.7192)
HSV
hsv(166, 65%, 84%)
LAB
lab(77.83% -45.00 4.84)
LCH
lch(77.83% 45.26 173.86)
CMYK
cmyk(65%, 0%, 15%, 16%)

Etymology

Direct
adjective

From the Latin directus, straight — used as a color modifier since the eighteenth century for hues that read as straightforward and unambiguous. Direct red, direct green: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clear and frank.

Mangrove
noun

Tropical-coastal salt-tolerant trees — Rhizophora, Avicennia, Bruguiera — whose tangled prop-roots define tropical estuaries from Florida to Borneo. Mangrove color refers to mature mangrove foliage seen against tidal water: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the matte finish of dense salt-adapted leaves.

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.

#4ad6b6
Original
#cfc9b5
Protanopia
#bbbab8
Deuteranopia
#00d8cd
Tritanopia
#b6b6b6
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
1.81:1
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
11.59:1

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
##4AD6B6
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4562 0.8280 0.7192)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.128

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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