colors
Back to gallery

Polished Acqua

#b4fce4
Notes

Polished Acqua (#B4FCE4) is a soft teal with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (160°, 92%, 85%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light 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
#b4fce4
RGB
rgb(180, 252, 228)
HSL
hsl(160, 92%, 85%)
HWB
hwb(160 71% 1%)
OKLCH
oklch(93.7% 0.079 171.8)
HSV
hsv(160, 29%, 99%)
LAB
lab(93.85% -27.11 4.37)
LCH
lch(93.85% 27.46 170.84)
CMYK
cmyk(29%, 0%, 10%, 1%)

Etymology

Polished
adjective

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Acqua
noun

The Italian word for water — used in fashion vocabulary for the pale blue-green of clear pool water and acqua marina hued silks. The color refers to the water of a Roman fountain in summer: a soft, slightly green-shifted pale blue with the optical clarity of mineral spring water. Lighter than aqua.

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.

#b4fce4
Original
#f8f3e3
Protanopia
#ebeae6
Deuteranopia
#a2fdf5
Tritanopia
#ebebeb
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
1.17:1
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
17.99:1

Related Colors

Canvas