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Cleansed Gemini Verdigris

#4ea89f
Notes

Cleansed Gemini Verdigris (#4EA89F) is a true 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 (174°, 37%, 48%) 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
#4ea89f
RGB
rgb(78, 168, 159)
HSL
hsl(174, 37%, 48%)
HWB
hwb(174 31% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.4% 0.087 186.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3990 0.6508 0.6224)
HSV
hsv(174, 54%, 66%)
LAB
lab(63.45% -29.07 -3.54)
LCH
lch(63.45% 29.29 186.94)
CMYK
cmyk(54%, 0%, 5%, 34%)

Etymology

Cleansed
adjective

Old English clǣnsian, to make clean — past-participle of cleanse. As a color modifier, cleansed implies a clear-and-purified quality where the hue has been stripped of any contaminating tint. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to fresh and pristine in usage.

Gemini
modifier

Latin gemini, twins-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, gemini implies a twins-and-air-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-air quality, the visual register of Castor-and-Pollux-Gemini-twins hand-twins-and-air-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-air Castor-and-Pollux-Gemini-twins-and-Argonaut-twins gemini-and-twins-and-air-sign surfaces under Castor-and-Pollux-Gemini-twins-and-Argonaut-twins late-spring-and-May-and-June mutable-air-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to castor and pollux 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.

#4ea89f
Original
#a0a09f
Protanopia
#9295a0
Deuteranopia
#0caba5
Tritanopia
#949494
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
2.83:1
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
7.43:1

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
##4EA89F
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3990 0.6508 0.6224)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.087

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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