Ocean Blues

This is the kind of teal that works in more rooms than it does not, which is rarer than it sounds. Ocean Blues is Vista Paint's 7414.

Light reflectance measures 18.0, which is enough to keep a room bright without bouncing light around. Chroma 15.6 sits in a comfortable middle: present enough to notice, restrained enough to live with.

Works as a whole-room color in spaces that are lived in rather than passed through, where its depth has time to register. The teal is more noticeable under cool, daylight-balanced bulbs than under standard warm ones, which tend to mute it. For a secondary wall, Benjamin Moore Through the Looking Glass gives a natural step up in brightness without feeling like a mismatch (roughly 33 LRV points apart).

Rooms already built around reds and brick tones are the hardest fit for this color - the two are opposites, and opposites next to each other rarely feel calm.

Anything pale placed against this wall will look paler than it is; anything warm-metal will look warmer. Neither is an illusion the color plays deliberately - it is simple contrast, but worth planning rather than discovering. For layering, pair this with a clearly lighter mid-tone on a secondary wall or cabinetry, and keep the ceiling close to white. The gap between each step should be big enough to see without thinking about it (roughly 18.0 / 52 / 85 on the reflectance scale).

Benjamin Moore Baltic Sea (CSP-680) runs close enough - delta-E 2.23 - that swapping brands should not change how the room looks. Across the other brands, nothing lands within delta-E 2 of this one - there is no easy substitute. Matte or low-sheen suits it on walls; higher gloss will exaggerate the undertone.

It is lighter than 16 percent of the Vista Paint range. Vista Paint lists it in the K codes, alongside 1,318 other colors.