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Smooth Türkis

#72d0b9
Notes

Smooth Türkis (#72D0B9) 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 (165°, 50%, 63%) 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
#72d0b9
RGB
rgb(114, 208, 185)
HSL
hsl(165, 50%, 63%)
HWB
hwb(165 45% 18%)
OKLCH
oklch(79.3% 0.096 175.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5375 0.8068 0.7289)
HSV
hsv(165, 45%, 82%)
LAB
lab(77.39% -33.41 2.77)
LCH
lch(77.39% 33.53 175.27)
CMYK
cmyk(45%, 0%, 11%, 18%)

Etymology

Smooth
adjective

Old English smōþ, level, polished — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous without texture or break. Smooth tan, smooth gray: moderate saturation combined with optical evenness. Sits in the crisp-bucket alongside even.

Türkis
noun

The German word for turquoise — borrowed via medieval Italian turchese (Turkish stone). Used in German jewelry vocabulary for the saturated blue-green of Iranian and American Southwest turquoise. The color refers to a Sleeping Beauty türkis cabochon: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green. The Germanic cousin of turquoise.

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.

#72d0b9
Original
#cac6b8
Protanopia
#bbbbbb
Deuteranopia
#4ed2c9
Tritanopia
#bababa
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
1.84:1
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
11.44:1

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
##72D0B9
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5375 0.8068 0.7289)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.096

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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