Every Color of the Year Since 2000, Measured

Key findings

• 43.6 → 17.7Average chroma (color strength), 2000–2009 vs 2020–2027
• 23 of 39Picks since 2020 that measure as neutrals (white, gray, greige)
• 10 of 39Dark picks since 2020 (L* under 40), against 3 of 20 in 2010–2019
• 5.8Closest two brands came (ΔE00): Artifact and Cottage Door, 2027
• 24.6Median ΔE00 in 2027, the year the brands' picks were most alike
• 8 vs 1Green-tinted neutrals vs true greens since 2020

Every pick, year by year

Each swatch is the value the brand itself publishes for the color: the hex or RGB on its color page, or, for Pantone, the on-screen value its own Color of the Year pages use. Where a brand names a color but publishes no value for it in the pages we saved, the card says so instead of guessing. Pantone's colors are physical standards (TCX cotton swatches); their screen values are approximations, and so is every paint swatch on a monitor.

Lightness: the picks moved to the ends of the scale

CIELAB lightness (L*) runs from 0 for black to 100 for white. The picks averaged 59.9 in 2000–2009, 59.2 in 2010–2019 and 57.6 in 2020–2027, close to where they started. The average hides a change in shape. Since 2020 the picks have spread out toward both ends: the spread of L* (standard deviation) rose from 16.9 to 20.6, 10 picks were dark (L* under 40) and 6 were very light (85 or more). The darkest were Naval (Sherwin-Williams, 2020), Darkroom (HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams, 2023), Encore (Valspar, 2025); the lightest were Cloud Dancer (Pantone, 2026), Blank Canvas (Behr, 2023), First Light (Benjamin Moore, 2020). In 2010–2019 only 3 picks were dark and 2 very light.

Chroma: from saturated to quiet

Chroma measures how far a color sits from gray. It is where the picks changed most. Pantone's colors averaged a chroma of 43.6 in 2000–2009 and 34.0 in 2020–2027; its most saturated pick is Tangerine Tango (2012, chroma 79.8), and its quietest is Ultimate Gray (2021, chroma 1.4). The paint brands, which join the record from 2014, pick far quieter colors still: an average chroma of 17.2 in 2010–2019 and 13.5 in 2020–2027. Put together, the average pick went from 43.6 to 32.2 to 17.7 across the three eras. Part of that fall is who is picking, since more paint brands joined in, and part is what they picked: since 2020, 23 of the 39 measured picks fall in ColorPlum's neutral paint families, against 6 of 20 in 2010–2019 and 1 of 10 in 2000–2009.

Hue families, and the question of green

Sorted into the twelve paint families ColorPlum uses across its paint catalog, the most common family since 2020 is gray (13 of 39 picks), followed by beige or greige (8) and blue (6). In 2010–2019 the most common was red (5 of 20), and in 2000–2009 red and blue (3 of 10 each).

The data does not show a rise in true greens. Only 3 picks measure as green: Emerald (Pantone, 2013), Greenery (Pantone, 2017), Webster Green (Benjamin Moore, 2027). What did rise is the green-tinted neutral, a gray, greige or olive whose hue leans green but whose chroma is too low to read as a green on its own: 8 since 2020, against 1 in 2010–2019 and 0 in 2000–2009. The recent ones are Back To Nature (Behr, 2020), Breezeway (Behr, 2022), October Mist (Benjamin Moore, 2022), Evergreen Fog (Sherwin-Williams, 2022), Quietude (HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams, 2025), Warm Eucalyptus (Valspar, 2026), Grounded (Behr, 2027), Celery (Sherwin-Williams, 2027). So when a brand calls its pick a sage or a moss, the measured color is usually a neutral with a green cast.

How close the brands came each year

For every year with picks from at least two brands, we measured the difference between each two brands' colors with CIEDE2000 (ΔE00), the standard formula for how different two colors look. Under 2 is hard to see side by side; above 10 the colors are clearly different. The closest any two brands have come is 5.8, Glidden's Artifact (PPG10-16) and Valspar's Cottage Door (8004-38E) in 2027: obviously different, though still related. Only 6 other pairs in the whole record came within 12: Breezeway and October Mist (2022, 9.7), October Mist and Evergreen Fog (2022, 9.9), Upward and Renew Blue (2024, 11.0), Cinnamon Slate and Mocha Mousse (2025, 11.5), Aegean Teal and Ultimate Gray (2021, 11.6), Classic Blue and Naval (2020, 11.8). Among years with at least four brands measured, 2027 was the most alike, with a median ΔE00 of 24.6, and 2020 the least, at 56.8. Sherwin-Williams and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams announced the same color in 2026 and 2027, so those years count that color once.

The full table

All 87 picks, including 5 cases where a brand named a collection instead of one color and 11 picks whose brand publishes no color value in the pages we saved. Links to ColorPlum's own paint pages are on the color names in the year-by-year cards above.

How we worked it out

We saved each brand's own Color of the Year pages, press releases and color pages on 2026-11-11, and took each pick's name, code and year from the brand's page that names it for that year. Pantone's names and numbers come from the past-colors list on its Color of the Year page; Pantone has not yet named a color for 2027. The color value comes from the brand: Sherwin-Williams publishes RGB on each color page, Benjamin Moore and Behr publish hex and light reflectance value, Valspar publishes hex on its color wall, and Glidden and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams show RGB or hex for some colors on their trend pages. Pantone sells physical standards; the values here are the on-screen chips and page colors from its own Color of the Year pages, and like any screen value they only approximate the physical color. We never substitute a value from a third-party list or estimate one from a photo.

Each value is converted from sRGB to CIELAB (D50, as CSS Color 4 defines it) with the same code that runs ColorPlum's converter and contrast tools; chroma is the distance from the gray axis, √(a*² + b*²). Families are ColorPlum's paint families, measured in OKLCH, with one guard: a color with OKLCH chroma of 0.12 or more is never filed as a brown, which keeps Pantone's Tangerine Tango with the oranges. A green-tinted neutral is a gray, greige or brown with an OKLCH hue between 95° and 175° and chroma of at least 0.015. A second, separate calculation in Python (colour-science and pandas), reading the saved pages directly, reproduces every published value and the headline figures, and an automated test fails the build if they drift. The methodology page explains how ColorPlum checks its figures in general.

Limits. The record is uneven, as the coverage table below shows: Pantone covers every year from 2000, but the paint brands start later in the pages we could save. Sherwin-Williams' picks for 2011 to 2013 and 2016 to 2019 are not named by year in its current pages, and Benjamin Moore's before 2015 are not either, so they are left out rather than filled from memory. Valspar named groups of twelve colors for 2019 and 2021 to 2023, and Sherwin-Williams a nine-color capsule for 2025. Behr's own history page lists Canyon Dusk (S210-4) as its 2021 color, and its value comes from Behr's color page as kept in ColorPlum's Behr catalog. Glidden's 2020 Whirlwind was presented as an alternative to a Color of the Year and its 2021 Aqua Fiesta as an accent color; both are listed as Glidden's own history page lists them. A pick's look on a wall depends on sheen and light, so treat every swatch as a guide and check a physical sample.

Use the data

Download the table (CSV)All 87 picks with code, published value, its source page, CIELAB values and family.

Journalists, designers and bloggers are welcome to use these figures, the charts and the table. Please credit ColorPlum and link to this page. To check a figure, or for a cut of the data we have not published, contact us. To compare two picks yourself, paste their hex codes into the color converter or browse paint colors with their codes and LRV.

Pantone, PANTONE, Color of the Year and the color names and numbers on this page are trademarks of Pantone LLC; Sherwin-Williams, HGTV Home, Valspar, Benjamin Moore, Behr, Glidden and PPG names, codes and color names are trademarks of their owners. They are used here only to identify each company's published picks. ColorPlum is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of these companies.