The Color Digest · Compare
Settled, side by side
Tundra
Benjamin Moore · 2133-70
A white that keeps its cool
Dead Salmon
Farrow & Ball · No. 28
Not dead, just resting
In real rooms
Every room, each colorThe difference
Read from the numbersTundra is the lighter of the two at LRV 77.07, 42.1 points above Dead Salmon at LRV 35. Tundra leans cool where Dead Salmon reads warm. Tundra is a whites, Dead Salmon a neutrals. For a whole room, Tundra is the safer, more forgiving choice thanks to its higher LRV, while Dead Salmon is the bolder pick.
How they read
In their own wordsTundra is the off-white for people who find most whites too creamy. Its LRV of 77 puts it in soft-white territory, but the base is a cool, faintly green-blue grey, so it reads clean and quiet rather than warm. On plaster mouldings and in rooms with a lot of daylight it looks like fresh air.
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.