Clear warm blue

Where it sits

True Spring palette

Clear warm blue is an anchor color in True Spring. Nothing on the same side of the warm–cool line comes within twenty points of it; the nearest is Light warm periwinkle #A5B4E8 in Light Spring at 24. That makes it a clean test. If it suits you, you are in this palette.

At RGB 46, 155, 214 the blue leads, the green sits a good way behind it, and the red is low. The green being well above the red is what makes it warm. The blue leading clearly is what keeps it a blue rather than a turquoise. Pull the green down and it becomes a cobalt that belongs to a Winter; add grey and it becomes the dusty cornflower that belongs to Light Summer.

A True Spring wears it as a color that reads as color: a shirt, a dress, a knit, a swimsuit. It pairs with cream and camel as the frame, with warm navy for a tonal outfit, and with coral and golden yellow for the two-color pairings that look like summer. It sits well next to warm turquoise, which is the same color with the green pushed ahead.

Retailers call it blue, bright blue, sky blue, azure, cerulean, pool blue or turquoise blue, and the names are unreliable: most of what sells as bright blue is a cobalt and most of what sells as sky blue is a pale cool blue. Hold the garment against a white. Clear warm blue looks bright and faintly green. A cobalt looks purple at the edges and belongs to a Winter. A sky blue looks grey beside it and belongs to a Summer.

Easily confused with

No neighboring palette is closer than seventeen points, which makes this one of the more distinctive blues in the system. True Summer's bluebell is seventeen points off and dusty; Light Summer's cool sky blue and dusty cornflower are eighteen points off and both greyer: on a True Spring they read flat, and on a Summer clear warm blue reads loud. True Spring's own warm periwinkle is twenty-two points off and carries violet, the blue to reach for when this one feels bright.

The nearest named colors in other seasons, by perceptual distance (ΔE in CIELAB; under 10 is hard to tell apart on a screen, over 25 is a different color).

In stock in this color today

As of November 11, 2026, 6 in-stock pieces across STAUD and Frank & Eileen sample within a close match of #2E9BD6. The dot on each card is the color we sampled from the garment itself; trust it over the photograph. Links are affiliate links: we earn a commission when you buy through them, at no cost to you.

Roselle Dress

Pacific

$525 at STAUD

Mary

Turquoise

$328 at Frank & Eileen

Laura Linen Dress

Blue Haze

$270 at STAUD

Valencia Dress

Pacific

$487 at STAUD

Cassie Dress

Pacific

$417 at STAUD

Evangeline Silk Dress

Blue Haze

$357 at STAUD

What it's sold as

Retailers almost never use the palette name. These are the color names on the in-stock pieces that sample within a close match of #2E9BD6 today, so they are the words to search for.

STAUD

Pacific, Blue Haze

Frank & Eileen

Turquoise

A retailer's name for a color says nothing about its undertone. "Navy" at one shop is a True Winter color and at another a Spring one. The sampled dot on each card above is what we trust.

Questions

The True Spring guide · All in-stock True Spring pieces · ← Warm periwinkle · All colors