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Aqua Shadow Soft
Color detail

Aqua Shadow Soft

Teal · Hue 180
Metrics
S 34% · L 28%
Contrast (WCAG)
on white7.1:1AAon black3:1Fail
Save to journalSign in to saveStart palette from thisRecent trail

About this color

Aqua Shadow Soft (#2F6060) belongs to the teal family — hue 180°, 34% saturation, 28% lightness. Copy the hex, RGB, or HSL value above, or paste the CSS custom property below into your stylesheet to reference this color directly.

CSS
:root {
  --colorarchive-aqua-shadow-soft: #2F6060;
  --colorarchive-aqua-shadow-soft-hsl: hsl(180, 34%, 28%);
  --colorarchive-aqua-shadow-soft-rgb: rgb(47, 96, 96);
}

AI Color Names

Let AI suggest alternative poetic names for this color in English and Chinese.

Design Context

DeepProfessionalStable
Common in

Corporate Software · Consulting · Marine

Pairs well with

White for sharp contrast, light coral for warmth, silver for tech

Design tip

Use as a dark theme primary or sidebar background. Deep teal is less harsh than pure black while maintaining professionalism.

Cultural context ▶

Deep teal evokes deep ocean waters — stability, depth, and hidden knowledge. Common in corporate and maritime contexts.

Color Origins

Teal family

The hue of patina, lagoons, and modern surgery.

Heritage

Teal — the blue-green range — is named after the Eurasian teal duck, which has a stripe of this color on its head. Egyptian blue and Egyptian green, both copper-based pigments, flank this region. The patina of weathered copper (the Statue of Liberty's color) sits here too; on the statue it is mostly basic copper sulfate. Phthalo turquoise is a 20th-century pigment.

Across cultures

In Persian and Central Asian Islamic architecture, teal-turquoise tile work is iconic — the domes of Samarkand and Isfahan are unmistakable. In ancient Egypt, faience (a kind of glazed ceramic in this color) was associated with the Nile, fertility, and rebirth. In the American Southwest, teal-turquoise is so deeply associated with Navajo and Pueblo silverwork that the color reads 'desert' there.

In the wild

Surgical scrubs are often green or teal, a choice usually explained by afterimages — staring at red tissue leaves green ghosts on white surfaces, which blend into blue-green cloth. Tiffany Blue, a robin's-egg blue-green, was trademarked in 1998 and later standardized with Pantone as '1837 Blue', after the company's founding year.

How it reads

Teal sits at one of the visually quietest points of the spectrum — it neither advances (like red) nor recedes (like blue). It reads as competent, calm, and slightly clinical. At low saturation it becomes a duck-egg or seafoam, soft and Scandinavian. At high saturation it becomes electric or tropical. Teal pairs particularly well with warm earth tones (terracotta, clay, beige).

This particular tone

A deep, weighted version of the hue — formal, considered, and pairs especially well with off-white and warm metallic accents.

Lightness band: At this depth the hue starts behaving like a neutral — it can substitute for black in many contexts while still carrying a faint chromatic temperature. It pairs especially well with off-whites and warm metallics.

Saturation band: The clear, mid-saturation register is a common identity sweet spot — saturated enough to register as a 'real' color, restrained enough not to fight typography or photography placed over it.

Brands using a similar color

Within the public brand-guidelines reference catalog, these are the closest matches to #2F6060.

  • Airbnbneutral
    Hof Gray · #484848
    →
  • Starbucksprimary
    Starbucks Green · #006241
    →
  • Patagoniaprimary
    Patagonia Sky Blue · #0061AC
    →

Cultures using a similar color

From the cultural-palette catalog, these regions feature a color close to #2F6060.

  • ScandinaviaForest Green
    #3D5B49 · Spruce / fir forest in winter light
    →
  • Italy (Tuscany)Cypress Green
    #3F5E47 · Tuscan hilltop cypresses
    →
  • Greece (Aegean)Cypress Green
    #3E6B47 · Cupressus sempervirens
    →

Color guides

Go deeper on using teal and color in design.

Brand & MarketingEarth Tone Color Palette: Building with Soil, Stone, and Nature's RangeColor TheoryMonochromatic Color Palettes: How to Build Depth from a Single HueDesign SystemsColor Token Naming Conventions: Primitive, Semantic, and Component Layers

Tonal strip

All lightness levels at this hue and saturation. Click any to navigate.

Palette moves

Instead of stopping at one swatch, use nearby, opposite, and tonal neighbors to branch into a broader palette.

Lighter companion
Aqua Dusk Soft
#397474 · hsl(180, 34%, 34%)
Darker companion
Aqua Nocturne Soft
#224444 · hsl(180, 34%, 20%)
Complementary counterpoint
Crimson Shadow Soft
#602F2F · hsl(0, 34%, 28%)
Analogous lead
Steel Shadow Soft
#2F4B60 · hsl(205, 34%, 28%)
Analogous echo
Teal Shadow Soft
#2F604F · hsl(160, 34%, 28%)
Triadic +120°
Fuchsia Shadow Soft
#602F60 · hsl(300, 34%, 28%)
Triadic +240°
Citrine Shadow Soft
#60602F · hsl(60, 34%, 28%)
Split-comp +150°
Blush Shadow Soft
#602F47 · hsl(330, 34%, 28%)
Split-comp +210°
Coral Shadow Soft
#60472F · hsl(30, 34%, 28%)
Export preview
Base: Aqua Shadow Soft #2F6060
Lighter companion: Aqua Dusk Soft #397474
Darker companion: Aqua Nocturne Soft #224444
Complementary counterpoint: Crimson Shadow Soft #602F2F
Analogous lead: Steel Shadow Soft #2F4B60
Analogous echo: Teal Shadow Soft #2F604F
Triadic +120°: Fuchsia Shadow Soft #602F60
Triadic +240°: Citrine Shadow Soft #60602F
Split-comp +150°: Blush Shadow Soft #602F47
Split-comp +210°: Coral Shadow Soft #60472F

Compare

See how Aqua Shadow Soft compares side by side with related colors.

vsAqua Dusk SoftvsAqua Nocturne SoftvsCrimson Shadow SoftvsSteel Shadow SoftvsTeal Shadow SoftvsFuchsia Shadow Soft

Nearest neighbors

The closest archive matches by hue, saturation, and lightness.

Search by hex
Nearby match
Aqua Shadow Dust
#355A5A · hsl(180, 26%, 28%)
Nearby match
Aqua Dusk Soft
#397474 · hsl(180, 34%, 34%)
Nearby match
Cyan Shadow Soft
#2F605C · hsl(175, 34%, 28%)
Nearby match
Aqua Nocturne Soft
#224444 · hsl(180, 34%, 20%)
Nearby match
Aqua Shadow Muted
#3B5454 · hsl(180, 18%, 28%)
Nearby match
Aqua Dusk Dust
#406D6D · hsl(180, 26%, 34%)

Accessible pairings

Archive colors that meet WCAG contrast standards when paired with this color. Use as text-on-background or background-on-text.

Contrast checker
AAA7:1
Amber Veil Bright
#FEFDF6
AAA7:1
Amber Veil Pure
#FFFDF5
AAA7:1
Canary Veil Vivid
#FEFDF6
AAA7:1
Canary Veil Bright
#FEFDF6
AAA7:1
Canary Veil Pure
#FFFEF5
AAA7:1
Citrine Veil Vivid
#FEFEF6

Color Vision Simulation

How this color appears with different color vision deficiencies.

Full simulator
Deuteranopia
#464260
Protanopia
#494960
Tritanopia
#336060
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Saturation ladder

Same hue and lightness, from gray to pure

Search
Aqua Shadow Faint#404F4F · hsl(180, 10%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Muted#3B5454 · hsl(180, 18%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Dust#355A5A · hsl(180, 26%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Soft#2F6060 · hsl(180, 34%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Clear#216E6E · hsl(180, 54%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Vivid#137C7C · hsl(180, 74%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Bright#0B8383 · hsl(180, 84%, 28%)Aqua Shadow Pure#068989 · hsl(180, 92%, 28%)
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