Colour Explained: Beige Paint - Ask The Experts | Lick

ask the experts • 4 min readColour explained: everything you need to know about beige paint

WordsFrankie Marqueé

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Beige is by no means bland and boring. Beiges range from light and airy to rich and grounding, playing a substantial part in the neutrals tribe of paints. Strictly speaking, neutrals refer to those colours that are ‘without colour’ – your whites, your blacks, your greys. But most people will count soft, biscuit-y beige hues like taupe, putty, and caramel as established relatives within the neutral family. Wondering whether to ask a beige paint to move in with you? Here’s how you can get colour confident and know which beige is destined to become your bestie.

Colour compatibility and room direction

Your perfect beige is just one step away. The deciding factor is this – room direction. It’s not just your garden that benefits from knowing what direction it’s facing for planting and sunbathing purposes; your interior spaces need that knowledge just as much to determine what sort of natural light your paint colour has to work with. Let’s break it down in the name of beige:

North-facing rooms: light warm beige paint

Cool and blue – that’s the sort of natural light you’ll be dealing with in a north-facing room. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a cool-toned beige is what you need, however. Blue light has a tendency to make cool colours feel flat, so a warmer beige is a better bet here. Step right up Beige 01, Beige 02, or Beige 07 whose warming yellow notes and dash of grey are a match made in heaven.

East-facing rooms: balanced beiges, somewhere between warm and cool

Easterly rooms are fickle things. They’ll get lots of lovely bright and clean light in the morning but come PM, things will feel more shadowed, so you should start by thinking, at what point of day will I use this space most and then play to its strengths. But, if you want it to look its best all day long, finding beiges with a balance of warm and cool undertones is the holy grail. Just as well two out of our three beiges provide just that.

Try to pay attention to your time of day use though to pick between the two, favouring slightly warmer Beige 01 if you’re using it in the afternoon (for example, an east-facing living room in Beige 01 will fair better when they light can turn a bit grey so needs the yellow undertone to give it a boost). Or, play up to the crisp morning light – ideal if you’re a before-work shower person and have an east-facing bathroom – and pick box fresh Beige 03 to enjoy it at its purest.

West-facing rooms: cooler beiges but with depth 

You know everything we just said in the paragraph above? Basically reverse it for a west-facing room. They too have the most changeable light and so need extra careful consideration. They get their glow on in the afternoon when the sun sinks lower in the sky but will feel cooler in the morning. If you want to run with that glow, then pick a warm beige that will counteract the cool morning light and shine on bright in the afternoon. But, if you were seeking a chilled-out and muted beige, stick to grey-based paints like Beige 03 and Beige 06. These greys will tone down the evening light and have enough depth to not cast a chill in the morning.

South-facing rooms: grounding beiges

South-facing rooms get the most natural light and are said to be the easiest rooms to work with. Beige 03 will balance the light given its grey undertones. A beige with a bit more weight to it like Beige 06 is a strong contender due to its black pigment, stopping the golden glow from warming up the room too much and from taking over. Plus, it’ll feel completely calming too – perfect for bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms alike.

Now go paint the town beige, and why not consider a multi-tonal beige palette? All three work beautifully in the same room – great news for the indecisive!

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