Alit Olmec Malachite
Alit Olmec Malachite (#50F9E7) is a true teal with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (174°, 93%, 65%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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.
Etymology
Old English ā-lihtan, to alight — past-participle of alight. As a color modifier, alit implies a saturated-and-just-illuminated quality, the bright color of evening-streetlamp and Christmas-tree-light freshly-switched-on emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to aflame and aglow in usage.
Nahuatl Ōlmēcatl, rubber-people. As a color modifier, olmec implies a pre-Classic-Mesoamerican quality, the visual register of Olmec-civilization-of-La-Venta pre-Classic Mesoamerican hand-carved colossal-head-and-jade-and-pottery archaeological surfaces under La-Venta-and-San-Lorenzo pre-Classic Mesoamerican Gulf-coastal humid light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to aztec and toltec in usage.
A copper carbonate mineral — Cu₂CO₃(OH)₂ — that crystallizes as concentric green bands in oxidized copper deposits. Mined for ornamental stone since ancient Egypt, ground into pigment for medieval European painting, polished into the malachite columns of the Russian Hermitage. The color refers to a polished cabochon: a saturated, slightly muted green with the high shine of stone and the visible banding of growth rings.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.