Every January the design world used to wait for a single answer, the Color of the Year, and then spend twelve months either chasing it or ignoring it. For 2026 that stopped working. The brands disagreed more than they have in a long time: espresso from one, indigo from another, aubergine from a third. We think that disagreement is the story. There's no consensus shade because buyers aren't looking for one. They want depth, warmth and pigment, and every brand got there its own way.
Below is what every major brand named for the year, and how our contributing designers are actually using each one in high-end interiors. The swatch under each brand is set to that color's officially published value. A screen can only approximate paint, but it does let you compare them side by side.
Benjamin Moore: Silhouette (AF-655)
Benjamin Moore's pick feels tailored. Silhouette is deep espresso brown with a lot of charcoal in it, like a well-cut suit. The market has been drifting toward grounded, earthy darks for two years, and this lands right in that drift. It's a neutral for architecture. Don't think of it as an accent.
Use it the way you'd use dark wood, as the backbone of the room. Drench a study or a dining room in it, with walls, trim and ceiling all in one finish, and it feels enveloping and expensive, especially next to unlacquered brass and the honed, tactile materials that define the year. It's also that rare dark paint that makes art look better.
Sherwin-Williams: Universal Khaki (SW 6150)
Benjamin Moore went deep. Sherwin-Williams went broad. Universal Khaki is a warm mid-tone neutral with a soft yellow-beige undertone, the successor to the grays that ran the last decade and have now fallen out of favor. For 2026 the company put its main line and its HGTV Home line behind a single pick for the first time, which tells you how hard it's betting on a warm neutral that does everything.
This is the whole-house color of the group. It's a backdrop, and it lets the furniture, stone and millwork carry the room. If you're getting a house ready to sell, it's the safe and correct choice, because to a buyer a warm envelope looks move-in ready in a way cool gray doesn't.
Behr: Hidden Gem (N430-6A)
Behr went with a saturated dark again, for the third year in a row. Hidden Gem is a smoky jade, a muted teal with something a little mysterious about it. The hue is bold, but there's enough gray in it to cover a whole wall. It's the most adventurous of the mass-market picks.
Save it for a jewel-box room like a powder room, a library or a paneled home bar. Add warm metal and keep the lights low and it gets properly moody.
Dulux: Rhythm of Blues
For the first time ever, Dulux didn't name a single shade. It picked a trio of indigos instead: Free Groove, Slow Swing and Mellow Flow, which run from a vivid royal blue to a deep navy to a soft, airy sky. Together they're called Rhythm of Blues, and they're a deliberate turn away from 2025's warmth toward a cooler, more flexible family.
The Dulux trio is a palette you layer by depth across one room. Pick just one of the three and you've missed the idea.
Dulux suggests grounding the blues with warm earth tones like terracotta and clay, and that's what keeps them from feeling cold. Deep navy on the lower cabinetry, the softer sky above, warm clay in the fabrics. That's how it's meant to read.
Little Greene: Adventurer
The British brand chose Adventurer, a rich aubergine that sits close to burgundy. Little Greene pitches it as the next step after the chocolate and caramel browns that have sold so well: the same warmth and texture, pushed deeper. It's the most openly luxurious of the 2026 picks. The minute it's on the wall, the room has atmosphere.
Aubergine this dark wants a whole surface. Drench a snug, a formal dining room or a primary bedroom in it and pair it with brass, aged mirror and candlelight. It suits the collectible furniture the big design houses are leaning into, and it does for a room what a deep shade does for a wine cellar. It makes you want to go in and stay.
Farrow & Ball: no single shade, four to watch
Farrow & Ball, true to form, wouldn't pick one color at all. Its team pointed instead to the shades it expects to define the year, led by a faded terracotta that lands somewhere between plaster pink and orange, a warmer option than the neutrals that came before it. The browns are doing a lot of the work: Broccoli Brown has become a bestseller, and Mouse's Back isn't far behind.
We think Farrow & Ball has the most honest read on the year. Warm, earthy, drenched, and unwilling to hand down a single verdict. Faded terracotta is the one we'd watch, because it covers both of the market's 2026 instincts, pigment and calm, on one wall.
What the picks have in common
Set the brand rivalry aside and 2026 says one thing clearly: gray is done, and depth has replaced it. Brown, teal, indigo or aubergine, every pick is grayed down, heavy on pigment and meant to be drenched across a room. You aren't supposed to dab it on as an accent. It's the paint-chip version of the wider move toward warmer, more crafted interiors, and it's why the single Color of the Year may not make it to 2027.
Our advice doesn't change from brand to brand. Choose one deep shade, put it on every surface in one finish, and let warm metal and daylight handle the rest.
Shade names, reference codes and published color values above come from each manufacturer's own 2026 announcement. The sources are listed in this page's structured record and linked from each brand's site. Hex values are our conversions of those published values and will differ from a physical sample, so order the sample. Reported by Élodie Marchand, Design Editor-at-Large. No paint company paid for or reviewed this article. See our editorial standards.
