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Buttoned Balm Verdigris

#4eb5a9
Notes

Buttoned Balm Verdigris (#4EB5A9) 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 (173°, 41%, 51%) 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
#4eb5a9
RGB
rgb(78, 181, 169)
HSL
hsl(173, 41%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(173 31% 29%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.9% 0.097 184.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.4165 0.7009 0.6622)
HSV
hsv(173, 57%, 71%)
LAB
lab(67.67% -32.69 -2.88)
LCH
lch(67.67% 32.81 185.03)
CMYK
cmyk(57%, 0%, 7%, 29%)

Etymology

Buttoned
adjective

Old French bouton, button — past-participle of button. As a color modifier, buttoned implies a clear-and-fastened-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-attire fully-fastened-and-formally-dressed gentleman's-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to trim and pressed in usage.

Balm
modifier

Latin balsamum, aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil. As a color modifier, balm implies an aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil-and-lemon-balm quality, the visual register of apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm hand-aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil-and-lemon-balm apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm-and-Tudor-still-room balm-and-aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil surfaces under apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm-and-Tudor-still-room Tudor-still-room-and-monastic-physic-garden apothecary-and-still-room-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to bergamot and hyssop 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.

#4eb5a9
Original
#adaca9
Protanopia
#9da0aa
Deuteranopia
#00b9b1
Tritanopia
#9e9e9e
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
2.47:1
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
8.51:1

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
##4EB5A9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.4165 0.7009 0.6622)
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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