Grime

This is depth rather than color in the usual sense - the yellow undertone gives it a direction, but the darkness is the point. Vista Paint files it as 0444.

LRV 10.0 means it returns almost no light, so whatever lighting the room has is the lighting you will see. It swallows shadow, so the room reads by its light sources and architectural lines.

If the room already has blues and cool greys in the floor, a rug, or the furniture, this color will fight it rather than sit well beside it - the two sit at opposite ends of the color spectrum, which is exactly why they clash instead of blend.

Warm metals - brass, aged gold, unlacquered fixtures - gain a contrast against this that they do not have against a lighter wall; it is a common reason people choose a color this deep in the first place. A natural scheme here moves in three clear steps: this color on the main wall, a noticeably lighter mid-tone for a second wall or built-in, and a near-white on the ceiling. Each jump should be obvious at a glance, not something you have to squint to tell apart (roughly 10.0, 48 and 85 on the light-reflectance scale, for reference).

In a small, enclosed room - a powder room, a reading nook - this can work on every wall, since there is no large floor area losing light to it. For a secondary wall, Vista Paint Heather Harmony gives a natural step up in brightness without feeling like a mismatch (roughly 26 LRV points apart).

Dark colors show every flaw in a wall, so matte is the safer finish unless the surface is brand new.

By the numbers, Benjamin Moore Aegean Olive (1491) and this color are indistinguishable - delta-E 0.61, well under what the eye can separate. This is not a rare shade: 3 colors from other brands sit within delta-E 2 of it.

It is lighter than 5 percent of the Vista Paint range. This is a crowded part of the scale - 533 colors measure within a point of 10.0 - so most brands will have something close. Vista Paint lists it in the C codes, alongside 1,421 other colors.