How to Choose the Right White Paint

​White can be difficult. It can skew too yellow, pink or grey. The wrong white can look drab, dreary and dirty.

My favorite color is white. Benjamin Moore’s Super White 02, to be exact. Super White is perfectly balanced and works great for new modern houses as well as renovated older homes. It can tie together an interior and let art, books and people be the focal point rather than the walls. Since it is washable, marks, dirt and fingerprints left behind by kids and pets can easily removed (with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser).

What I love about white is that it bounces the available natural light throughout a house. In Seattle this is important during those short, grey days of fall, winter and, let’s face it, spring. For me, nothing beats the luminous quality of a good white. It can capture and transmit the mutable qualities of natural light. In the morning it may be a little more yellow as the sun rises. At mid-day it can be at its brightest, most white. In the evening it can pick up the pink of the sunset. With white paint, the interior of the house constantly changes throughout the day and the seasons.

Some designers try to combat the seasonal doldrums by painting rooms saturated colors, but this can also create cave-like interiors. Homeowners can spend thousands of dollars painting their homes only to have them look dated by the time the paint is dry. White, on the other hand, is timeless.

White can sometimes be too stark. That’s why I love Super White. It has a warm hue, so it never appears chalky, stark, or severe. When combined with natural materials such as a wood floor, colorful rugs, and the texture of furnishings, it can create a serene environment that is welcoming oasis at the end of the day.

But don’t just take my word for it, there is science behind why Super White looks so great.

Color expert and strategist (yes, that is a thing), Lori Sawaya of Camp Chroma, places Super White on her 17 Best White Paint Colors list and breaks down its attributes in a Colorgraphy. Super White is one of the warmer whites on her list, is one of the lightest, and one of the truest whites. Here’s the breakdown:

• Hue is a color’s core characteristics along the spectrum of colors; red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and violet. You can see that most of the white’s Sawaya recommends fall in the yellow/green spectrum and are considered warm.
• Value is how light or dark a color looks. The values of Sawya’s preferred whites range from 8.74 to 9.48. Super White is at the lighter end with a value of 9.30.
• Chroma is the amount of color. As whites get less chromatic, they get closer to a true neutral white—the whites on Sawaya’s list range in chroma from 0.84 to 0.21. Super White’s chroma is 0.21, the least chromatic on the list, making it the closest to true neutral white.
• LVR (Light Reflectance Value) is how much light a color reflects or conversely absorbs. Black has an LVR of 0% and white 100%. The 17 white paints range in LRV from 74 to 92, with Super White having an LVR of 87.

Now that you know what white to use, you’ll also need to select the paint finish; different areas of the house require different finishes for durability as well as aesthetics. I recommend:

• Benjamin Moore’s Ultra Spec 500 Eggshell for all walls except bathrooms.
• Benjamin Moore’s Ultra Spec 500 Flat for all ceilings except for bathrooms.
• Benjamin Moore’s Advance Satin for trim and doors.
• Benjamin Moore’s Aura Bath & Spa in Matte for bathroom walls and ceilings.