The Color Digest · Compare
Settled, side by side
Swiss Coffee
Benjamin Moore · OC-45
The warm white everyone starts with
Dead Salmon
Farrow & Ball · No. 28
Not dead, just resting
In real rooms
Every room, each colorThe difference
Read from the numbersSwiss Coffee is the lighter of the two at LRV 84, 49 points above Dead Salmon at LRV 35. Both read warm. Swiss Coffee is a whites, Dead Salmon a neutrals. For a whole room, Swiss Coffee is the safer, more forgiving choice thanks to its higher LRV, while Dead Salmon is the bolder pick.
How they read
In their own wordsSwiss Coffee is the warm white by which other warm whites are measured. With an LRV near 84 it stays bright and open, but a slight yellow-beige undertone keeps it creamy rather than clinical — the look of fresh cream rather than fresh snow.
Dead 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.