The Color Digest · Compare
Settled, side by side
Dead Salmon
Farrow & Ball · No. 28
Not dead, just resting
Moonlight
Benjamin Moore · 2020-60
The yellow that lights a room from inside
In real rooms
Every room, each colorMoonlight
1 roomThe difference
Read from the numbersMoonlight is the lighter of the two at LRV 83.37, 48.4 points above Dead Salmon at LRV 35. Both read warm. Dead Salmon is a neutrals, Moonlight a yellows. For a whole room, Moonlight is the safer, more forgiving choice thanks to its higher LRV, while Dead Salmon is the bolder pick.
How they read
In their own wordsDead Salmon takes its name from an eighteenth-century decorating bill at Kedleston Hall, where 'dead' meant matte rather than deceased. The color is a muddy pink-beige — salmon left in the sun until only the memory of pink remains. At LRV 35 it is a real mid-tone with unusual depth for a neutral.
Moonlight — now sold by Benjamin Moore under the name Sicilian Lemon, same number 2020-60 — is a pale, clear butter yellow with an LRV of 83. It is light enough to behave like a tinted white in a bright room and cheerful enough to make a north-facing one feel as if the sun came out.