Sea Salt

Sea Salt is a light green-gray with a gray foundation, and it is famous for not staying green. In a north-facing room, or any room lit mostly by cool or indirect light, it reads blue — sometimes blue-green, often simply blue. In a south-facing room and in warm morning or afternoon sun the green comes forward and it looks like the sea-glass color on the chip.

The shift continues through the day. East-facing rooms get green in the morning and blue by evening; west-facing rooms lean green. At night under most artificial light it goes blue-gray.

None of this is a defect — it is why people love the color — but it means a chip is useless. Sample it on two walls and look at it morning, afternoon and night before deciding.

Sea Salt is a wall color, and its best rooms are the small and private ones: bathrooms, bedrooms, laundry and mud rooms, home offices. It is light enough for a whole room but has enough color that a whole house of it is a commitment few consultants recommend.

On cabinets the consensus is no: one consultant answers the question with a flat 'generally speaking, no', and Comfort Gray SW 6205, a step deeper, is the usual suggestion for cabinetry instead.

Outdoors it divides opinion. The Color Concierge warns it turns minty — 'kind of like toothpaste' — on an exterior; Jenna Kate at Home lists coastal exteriors among its uses. In full sun it will read lighter and greener than it does inside.

Sherwin-Williams' own coordinating colors for Sea Salt are Spare White SW 6203, Fleur de Sel SW 7666 and Summit Gray SW 7669. Designers mostly prefer a clean white trim: Pure White SW 7005, Extra White SW 7006, Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace OC-65 and White Dove OC-17 all work. Kylie M Interiors says Sea Salt is 'too light and cool to go with cream finishes'; The Color Concierge is more relaxed and accepts soft off-whites such as Alabaster SW 7008. Nobody recommends a yellow cream.

For accents it likes Iron Ore SW 7069, Hale Navy HC-154, Repose Gray SW 7015 and Agreeable Gray SW 7029, along with pale oak, linen and limestone.

Its relatives are Rainwashed SW 6211, darker and bluer, Silver Strand SW 7057 and Comfort Gray SW 6205, both deeper, and Topsail SW 6217, lighter and bluer. Benjamin Moore's closest match is Gray Cashmere 2138-60 — and note that Benjamin Moore also sells an unrelated gray called Sea Salt, so check the brand before buying.

It fails when you wanted green. This is the complaint behind almost every regret: the room reads blue, and in a north-facing room it reads very blue. If the room faces north and you want green, Sea Salt is the wrong choice.

It fails with cream and with red-orange wood. Creamy trim makes it look sickly, and cherry or orange-toned oak trim clashes with it outright.

And it fails as a whole-house color for most people: it is a color, not a neutral, and a house full of it tires quickly unless you love it.