Hi Jennifer and Beth
I have the similar condition with Beth’s living room.
I am looking to paint my son’s bedroom which facing north/east. Right now the trim and crown molding is white with undertone blue (I think it is SW Extra White, I gueesed it from the can that the previous owner left). Ceiling is SW Alabaster, and wall is BM Balboa Mist). Now, I had sampled the Simply White and WhiteDove , obviously I love Simply White but it would be different tone with the trim (door trim, window trim and closet trim inside the bedroom). Should I repaint the trim with Simply White (which I am not looking forward to reduce the cost) or Oxford White will be more suitable with the trim (I had not sampled the Oxford White).
And advise on the ceiling color also.
Thanks and Beth I love how you pick the theme color of your livingroom!

Thank you!

I am probably fussier than most when it comes to white and what is and isn't acceptable for my home. When I create a whole home color palette I start with colors before I pick neutrals and whites.

The second step is to pick neutrals that work well with my colors

The third step is to pick a white that works well with my neutrals and colors.

I will select one white for the entire house.

When I painted my interior white I used Devine Icing on the walls, trim and ceiling. I did not have white cabinets, but if I did I would have used the same white there as well.

The other option that I work is light neutral walls and white trim.

Here are some examples

This room appears to have the same white on walls, ceiling and trim.

The following have light neutrals with white trim.

ceiling matching the walls

White ceiling

This on is what I don't like The white walls feel like they tried to match the trim and missed. They are slightly green and the sofa is slightly pink and the trim is bright white.

or this one where the ceiling is a bit dirtier than the trim - matching neither the white trim or colored walls.

What look are you going for and how much will it bother you if the whites are a little off?

Thank you Jennifer for getting back to me and provide the sample photos. My house is similar to last photo, blue undertone white trim, greige wall, and lighter greige but totally different color. It didn’t bother me before but now it does since I am gooling a lot of paint advise.

I am looking more harmonized in terms of ceiling, trim and walls, for my son’s room (refer to your photos #2 and %3). But make the room brighter will be more priority for now. So If I choose the more neutral white (that match the trim more) will the white shade turn into dingy gray? I sampled white heron this morning (I asked for Oxford white and they give White Heron, are they the same?)

I attached photo as reference.
Photo 1 (top is Simply White, bottom is White Heron.
Photo 2 (left is Simply White, bottom is White Heron)

Thank you so much!

If it helps, the door is warm/yellowish white 😀(I know they all wrong tones all over the place). We have dark brown hardwood floor, kind of coffee color if that make sense. And most of my son’s furniture will be Ikea white and probably warm grey.

What color did you end up going with and what do you think about your selection!

I heard Rumors that Oxford white and White Heron were the same but I got samples and they are not they are close but a little different I am going to call BM store and ask to make sure ♥️ I am doing Oxford all over my house and I love it it has a very passive slight warmth that I love but doesn’t feel yellow or too cold it feels modern but softer my house faces East so finding the right colors that work can be challenging I had Chantilly lace and loved but it was to bright and Oxford white CC-30 is perfect ♥️

Nice, please post pictures. I am going to compare myself for my trim both the Oxford White and Chantilly Lace. I was always using just plain white or Super White.

I definitely will the dining room isn’t done being painted yet but I will soon as it’s done ♥️♥️ or I’ll do a bigger sample patch and post for you I used colorshop samples but painted a spot myself and looked at it throughout the day to see how it changed and it did beautiful ♥️

Susan I am covering up the gray because tho it is kind of light it feels to shadowed Oxford white is on some of the walls The Baseboards and Crown are not painted yet but will be Oxford white also in semi gloss My house Faces East so the light changes Throughout the day ♥️

Crown is also not done being done a other piece has to be added at the top but while room will be Oxford white I tinted the ceiling Flat too that Oxford white also

Sorry my phone is acting up today but the Crown Trim and the ceiling will all match but in different sheens hope this helps ♥️♥️

I also found this picture this is Oxford White

I like the happy peaceful Oxford White. Thank you for sharing.

How are Oxford white 869 and White Heron OC-57 the same color?

@Mary S - If you look at the Benjamin Moore website and inspect the code for the two colors you will see that they are using the exact same code to display either color.

Most likely the formula they use to make the color is also the same.

Of the 3917 color values that I have collected from their website there are almost 700 duplicate RGB/Hex color codes. A little more than 1/2 are two colors with the same name in two different collections (Oxford white is both 869 and CC30) but the rest, Like White Heron and Oxford White have two different names in two different collections, but are the same color.

How are Oxford white 869 and White Heron OC-57 the same color?

Because they have essentially the same color DNA.

Specifically CIE Lab Values. Paint companies use Lab values to create and make paint colors because they best define and describe what paint colors look like to a person with normal color vision under a standard light source.

At The Land of Color we use Munsell hue, value, chroma values. Because like Lab values, they accurately define what paint colors look like to a human.

Most importantly, they're easier to understand without complicated color jargon or the hassle of asking the paint store.

Even if you don't understand what the numbers mean, you can easily compare and see how similar the colors are.

The numbers don't match exactly because two different chips were measured - the fact that they are so similar emphasizes just how powerful using the correct color notations to compare colors really is.

Thank you Lori A. Sawaya for sharing.

Thank you Jennifer Hogan!

@susanlynn2012 Sure. 🙂

With duplicate DNA notations the formula will be the same. If it's not, something is off somewhere.

Why the paint companies use different names for the same color formulation is beyond me. It would be so much easier if they would consolidate the offerings.

I asked about that once. Additional color collections evolve over time and outlast several iterations of color managers with differing visions for collections.

And, it's disruptive and expensive to rework a brand's collection. For example, the Benjamin Moore Classic and Preview are 40, 50 ish years old at this point.

Back in the day color collections were put together by a person. Now there are programs that can collate thousands of colors in minutes and show where there are overlaps and gaps.

For example, Magnolia Home. We have notations for all the colors and interestingly they fit neatly into the gaps of other brands - in other words, you're not going to find "similar" colors at SW or BenM.

Comes down to overlaps and gaps be darned, can't just pitch color systems - popular, widely embedded and familiar to users - and start over.

Although I think BEHR just did. 😆 But they needed to; their color tools were a hot mess. The new architectural kit, I have to say, looks impressive. Color pros can pre-order thru swatchbox.com

Thanks, Lori. I can see the "logic" here after reading your explanation. However, in my case, it leads to my narrowing down my choices to my tried and true colors, unless none of them work in a space.

The only way to know if the two formulas are identical is to know the two formulas.

Why do I say this? Because unless you have a space that is temperature controlled and a highly accurate spectrophotometer and are testing paint samples created to quality control standards (specified temp, humidity, substrate, application method, thickness) you won't get a perfectly accurate reading of the intended paint color.

Standards for print materials (fan decks) is generally considered acceptable with a Delta e of +-3 with a gold standard of +-2 Delta e. The printing process is just not that perfectly accurate.

If your measurement is not perfectly accurate and may be off by +-3 you could get two identical measurements for 2 colors that are not the same color.

If you have ever worked in quality control you understand that their are acceptable standard deviations for each process.

Each batch of colorant may be within a specific range of color. Samples on batches are tested to see if the batch color falls within the "Acceptable" range.

Every mixing machine is expected to be calibrated so that it delivers an "Acceptable" range of colorant into the cans of paint.

Each can of paint has to be filled to an "Acceptable" range of product.

So each can of paint that you purchase may be a little different than another can with the exact same formula. (This is why professional painters box their paint)

Then you add in the fact that paint color changes as it dries, and the faster it dries the lighter the color. So you go home and spray your walls and I go home and roll my walls my walls will be darker than your walls, given that we have the same temperature and humidity levels. Your walls will be darker if you paint on a cold, rainy day compared to painting done on a warm, dry day. This plus the changes that occur over time to the color on your walls is why it is so difficult to touch up paint on your walls without feathering the paint to blend the two colors and why sometimes even feathering doesn't work and you need to paint the whole wall.

On top of all of this we have the difference in appearance caused by gloss level, lighting, the other colors and textures in a room and by the texture of your walls.

What matters here is not that the formulas are the same, but that the colors are similar enough that the OP could paint one room with one color and another room with the other color and then flip flop the colors and not be able to see a difference.

As to the use of LCH vs RGB they are mathematically interchangeable. One tristimulus measurement is obtained by a color meter or spectrophotometer and converted mathematically to Lab, LCH, RGB, sRGB, HSL or any of the many other color space notations. LCH is valuable because the notation is the most easily comprehended notation, describing color as we describe color, lightness/darkness, brightness/grayness and hue.

The human perception of color is much more complex than the simple measurement of color. We have yet to create a computer that matches the complexity of the human mind. The worlds most powerful computer computes one thousand trillion calculations per second. The human brain is estimated to calculates one billion billion calculations per second. Our brains automatically adjust and compare color data in ways that we simply can't measure. This is why we may perceive blue when the measured hue of a color is yellow.

🙉🙊🙈

@Marylee H 🙄

tried and true colors

When you have a curated color strategy, no reason to fix it if it's not broken.

The truth is there aren't that many duplicates. I mean there are several but not like hundreds.

We flagged all the duplicates we know of in our data base - along with the color formulas.

It's a topic I've considered writing about in a blog post because it's information that could be helpful.

I'd love to read a blog post on that topic. And knowing that there are not hundreds is a good thing.

Hey guys I called Benjamin Moore and they said that White heron and Oxford white are two different colors...and I ordered samples of each from the color shop they use real paint and they are different colors♥️

https://www.loveremodeled.com/white-heron-benjamin-moore/

"Benjamin Moore White Heron and Oxford White

You’ll see people ask the question, are White Heron (OC-57) and Oxford White (OC-30 or 869) the same paint color?

You can’t find a definitive answer on Benjamin Moore’s website, so I called my local Benjamin Moore store and had them check out the formulas for me.

It turns out, Benjamin Moore White Heron and Oxford White are the same exact formulas! Both have dark yellow, white and gray in them in the same amounts.

Oxford White was part of Benjamin Moore’s original fan deck, called Benjamin Moore Classics. Years later, Benjamin Moore compiled some of their colors into different collections, including the Off-White Collection. I’m not sure when, but at some point Benjamin Moore renamed Oxford White as White Heron. Oxford White is still part of the Designer Classic Collection, and White Heron is included in the Off-White Collection.

But, if you order either White Heron or Oxford White from Benjamin Moore, you’ll receive the same color paint."

Thank you Jennifer Hogan!

Hello i came across this post while researching oxford white. i really love oxford white for a townhouse i just bought. i have a contractor taking off the textured ceiling this week and he wants to know what color he should use on the ceiling. originally i was planning on doing the ceiling, walls and trim all in different finishes of oxford white. but now that i put my samplize oxford white sample on the ceiling it looks much darker than i thought (its sitting next to chantilly lace). has anyone used oxford white on their ceilings? if so, how does it look do you have pics? thanks!

Here are a few pictures. oxford white is the darker one (its sitting next to chantilly lace)

Amanda, get the brightest white for the ceiling. I use the Base 1 white, and have them add squirts of white only to the can.

they also make ceiling paint in a 'white'. whatever you use will look darker anyway, so pick the whitest white w/no yellow or blue tint to the can

@Amanda, agree with Beth. I'm going to try and dig out the pic for you. I too was going to do different finishes of oxford for the ceiling and my trim. Ummmed and ahhhed forever, then finally made the call. Started painting the ceiling and thought geeze this looks dark (as compared to the bright white primer), maybe it'll lighten when it dries. Painted a room, came back the next day and it was still just as dark. Bought a standard flat "ceiling" white, repainted and never looked back! Well I haven't looked back, but I do look up and each time smile. Trim is oxford and I love that too. :)

@Amanda To me, it instantly made my ceiling feel lower. Though disclaimer, as is the theme of this thread, I have a low light room.

Apartment · More Info

You can see where I stopped painting. I just knew right away I HATED it!

Apartment · More Info

Hope this helps with your decision making! Happy painting.

Ohhh wow I can see the difference!!! I have low light rooms too.. after reading this posting this makes me more confident in choosing oxford white for the walls now. Thank you for sharing!! I had the same feeling! I'm glad i reached out to this group first. So to clarify Rachel you painted the walls + trim in oxford white??? I was thinking about doing that as well. the painter keeps asking me to send him a ceiling paint number. I don't know which one to give him.. I read that Chantilly Lace pulls in blue. I read that "High Reflective White" doesn't have any yellow or blue undertones but it you need to add white to it to make it work for a ceiling? I don't have a sample of it.. I never thought of about avoiding grey/blue undertones in the ceiling. Great suggestion Beth! I'm trying to google what the best ceiling paint is that goes with oxford white but I'm having trouble finding articles. Thanks ladies! I can use all the advice I can get

I agree with Beth H to use the brightest while on the ceiling.

This is the ceiling paint I used after the oxford fiasco, @Amanda. No undertones. It is just a pure white. I made my life miserable over-complicating the ceiling color when the inexpensive, non-fussy product that said ULTRA PURE WHITE CEILING PAINT was just sitting there waiting for me to come to my senses. https://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-PREMIUM-PLUS-2-gal-Ultra-Pure-White-Ceiling-Flat-Interior-Paint-55802/100183930?MERCH=REC--searchViewed--NA--100183930--N&

My walls are blue (lookout point) and Oxford (which I used in the end for my trim only) definitely has blue/grey undertones that complement my walls perfectly.

Thank you so much for the advice and information! I will share this paint with the painter! You're the best! :)

Its Crazy because Ben moore updated Their website and they are now saying Oxford white and White Heron are officially the same ♥️ even though some stores say other wise ..they are saying Chantilly Lace is a matching /coordinating color and they say White Dove is similar so you could have White Dove as your wall color and Oxford white as your trim which ive seen and its pretty and Oxford white as your wall and chantilly Lace as your Trim Im painting one of my rooms white dove my trim is oxford white

Yes, we also have Oxford White and White Heron with the same formula and same notations.

Not sure what criteria Ben Moore is using for similar color recs, but here you can compare how different White Dove is from White Heron.

I think it's a reach to call them similar. Because there's such a big difference in Chroma that you could use the two colors together and see a contrast.

In addition, they're from two different hue families.

Chantilly Lace is factually more similar to Oxford White. So similar, I wouldn't recommend using them together.

Because they are so similar, might as well just use one in different sheens. And you'd definitely want to take a look in your space with your stuff to make sure neither one was making the other look dirty or dingy.

@Lori A. Sawaya I had Chantilly walls with matching Trim in that room but it was super Bright.. Oxford White Toned it Down and Thank Goodness it Doesn’t look Dingy to me..I also was very confused to about White Dove being similar to Oxford white I couldnt belive it .. I know it list chantilly lace as a matching and similar color but White Dove? But I know White Dove with Oxford white Trim look beautiful Together and so do Oxford white walls with Chantilly Lace Trim below is a pic of my Family room with Oxford white walls and Chantilly Lace Trim..after we had renovated it 3 yrs ago after a flood ♥️ and a pic of White Dove walls with oxford white trim by Kylie M. Interiors♥️ I now have a black accent wall but The othersin this room are Oxford white with chantilly Lace trim Oxford white glows on the wall to me

Oxford white with chantilly Lace trim Oxford white glows on the wall to me.

Stunning with your floors - it's beautiful.

Rules of thumb abut color are just that. 🙂 They're more about what to watch out for when you sample colors in your space than it is color mandates.

@Lori A. Sawaya Thank you so much!!🥰♥️I Totally Agree with you usually I do same color trim as walls when working with whites but sometimes that doesnt work depending on your flooring and some other factors too.. I was scared as Heck of it being Dingy so I sampled and thought well it just might work its weird to because Oxford seems like it has a bit of warmness to it? or is it just me ? because Ben moore says a slight cool cast but it has a nice softness to it

Oxford seems like it has a bit of warmness to it? or is it just me ? because Ben moore says a slight cool cast but it has a nice softness to it

I agree with you.

Because when we plot Oxford on the CSCW, it drops in on the warm side of the green-yellow hue family.

Warm and cool isn't a color data value like hue/value/chroma/LRV.

Instead, warm and cool is a comparison; on my color wheel that comparison is to a few thousand other colors in the Munsell color order system.

As a result, the CSCW warm and cool designations holds true most all the time in actual context/ rooms. Like yours.

@Lori A. Sawaya so Chantilly lace is slightly warm also? and people also say thats cool I compare all of my whites to a chantilly lace sample to tell and see the real undertones it is crazy how close Oxford white and Chantilly lace are but when you put them up you can see The difference thats why i shocked when i put them together and it worked and Ben moore listed them as matching colors and called Oxford slightly cool because I knew it belong to the YG family and in certain times of day you can see alot of Oxford whites softness ♥️

Chantilly Lace and Oxford White are both very neutral - Chroma is nearing zero.

When you think of neutral gray do you think warm or cool.

Do you think blue or yellow?

They are both very very light gray - they are truly not either warm or cool, but in general people perceive gray as cool.

The hue family at this low level of chroma isn't the deciding factor. It is the low chroma that makes it read cool.

Chantilly lace is slightly warm also?

When compared to thousands of other colors -and in the context of- the Munsell and CIELAB 3 dimensional color models, yes it is.

This blog post is a summary of a presentation I gave in 2018 about psychological color temperature. Need to clarify psychological because it was to a group of color scientists who only know color temperature to be about black body radiation.

The concept that designers/artists split a color wheel in to warm and cool halves was a foreign concept. And for good reason because splitting a color mixing color wheel in half doesn't account for how a real person perceives color. 3 dimensionally.

https://thelandofcolor.com/disrupting-what-you-think-you-know-about-warm-and-cool-colors/

The concept of warm and cool colors predates most of the scientific tools we have today to measure color.

It originated from the concept of warmth vs cold.

the Oxford English Dictionary describes 18th century usage to include:

Cold - applied to tints or colouring which suggest a cold sunless day, or the colder effect of evening; esp. to blue and grey, and tints akin to these.

Warm - suggestive of warmth, said especially of red or yellow ... to become 'warmer' or more ruddy: "On a bright morning of July, when the grey of the sky was just beginning to warm with the rising day".

I always conceptualized the concept as warm-related to the heat of the sun or cool of the water.

The scientific difference deals with the sensitivity of the S cone. I am not a neuro science expert, but it has something to do with thresholds of the S cone and how colors change as they are desaturated. Blue goes from blue to darker and darker blue, but we still perceive the color as blue and we name the colors as blue light blue, sky blue, navy blue. When we change the chroma Blue goes from bright blue to gray blue.

You can't do the same with yellow. We only see yellow in very specific ranges of light and chroma. We call dark yellow gold or brown and as we desaturate yellow it can either move toward green or violet. At the lowest saturations there isn't any yellow or orange or red. Have you ever heard someone describe a gray as a dark yellow gray? Nope. Beige can be pink, yellow, gold or green and gray can be green gray, blue gray or violet gray.

So when the hue is yellow and it is desaturated it becomes olive green or brown - moves toward red or toward green it never stays yellow. At some point it moves to either a green gray or violet gray and looses any association with yellow.

Grays are innately cool. - related to water, not the sun. Do you ever picture the sun as gray? Do you ever picture water as yellow?

Where is the break between cool and warm? At what level of chroma do we determine that a yellow is no longer warm, but has moved into the cool zone? That may actually depend on your physiology - some people see more colors than other and can discern subtle changes in color better than others. It may also depend on the levels of dopamine in your system - we see colors more vividly when dopamine levels are high than we do when dopamine levels are low.

I don't know if their is a definitive answer to your question about Chantilly Lace. Is it above or below the S cone threshold? It seems that the color experts at Benjamin Moore agree with many other color experts and define it as a cool white so my guess is that it is beyond the threshold of chroma where we actually perceive the color as warm even if it is in a CIE LCH hue that is generally associated with the Munsell Yellow Green hue family.

BTW - CIE LCH Is linear in nature, where Munsell is not. The Muncell hues curve when mapped against LCH hues. The curvature expands as chroma and luminance are reduced.

How we see color and how we measure color are not perfectly correlated.