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Plumb Catmint

#68ebc5
Notes

Plumb Catmint (#68EBC5) 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 (163°, 77%, 66%) 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.

HEX
#68ebc5
RGB
rgb(104, 235, 197)
HSL
hsl(163, 77%, 66%)
HWB
hwb(163 41% 8%)
OKLCH
oklch(85.6% 0.129 171.3)
HSV
hsv(163, 56%, 92%)
LAB
lab(85.19% -45.07 7.61)
LCH
lch(85.19% 45.71 170.41)
CMYK
cmyk(56%, 0%, 16%, 8%)

Etymology

Plumb
adjective

Latin plumbum, lead — referring to the lead-weighted plumb-line of pre-modern carpentry. As a color modifier, plumb implies a clear-and-vertical-true quality where the hue carries the visual register of gravity-aligned-and-perfectly-vertical surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and squared in usage.

Catmint
noun

The genus Nepeta — particularly N. mussinii (catmint), the cottage-garden perennial with silver-green foliage and lavender-blue flower spikes. The color refers to a fresh catmint clump in May: a soft, slightly cool gray-green with the matte finish of small mint-family leaves. Cooler than santolina.

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.

#68ebc5
Original
#e5ddc3
Protanopia
#d1cfc8
Deuteranopia
#1aede0
Tritanopia
#cccccc
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
1.47:1
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
14.28:1

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