Farrow & Ball purple paint colors

Farrow & Ball keeps a tight deck of around 132 colors, and only three of them sit in the purple family. So this is a small, curated slice rather than a big range to scroll through. Each color carries a number alongside its name, like Pelt (No. 254) or Pitch Blue (No. 220), which is how the brand has always cataloged its paint.

These are deep, pigment-rich purples that lean moody and grown-up rather than bright or playful. Farrow & Ball is known for colors that shift with the light through the day, so a wall can read more blue, more brown, or more violet depending on the time and the room. Expect quiet, complex tones that change as the sun moves.

LRV is a simple number from 0 to 100 that tells you how much light a color bounces back. Low LRV means dark and light-absorbing; high LRV means light and bright. In this purple slice the range runs from 6 at the darkest to 74 at the lightest, which is a wide spread for only three colors.

Great White (No. 2006) sits at the top with an LRV of 74, so it acts as a soft, near-neutral light tone with a faint purple cast. At the other end, Pelt (No. 254) at LRV 6 is almost as dark as paint gets, and Pitch Blue (No. 220) at LRV 16 is deep but a touch lighter. Match the number to your goal: high LRV for open and airy, low LRV for cocooning and dramatic.

The two dark colors here, Pelt and Pitch Blue, are made for drama. They turn a dining room, study, or powder room into something rich and enveloping, and they hide scuffs and shadows better than pale walls. Because they read differently in daylight versus lamplight, they reward rooms you use in the evening.

Great White is the flexible one. At LRV 74 it works as a whole-house light tone, a ceiling color, or trim against the darker purples. If you want the purple character without a dark room, lean on Great White for the large surfaces and save Pelt or Pitch Blue for an accent wall, a fireplace, or joinery.

A reliable move is to pair a dark purple wall with a soft off-white trim and ceiling, and Great White can do that job from inside this same slice. The shared family keeps the undertones friendly so the white never looks cold or out of place next to the purple. Many people also paint trim the same color as the wall for a seamless, modern look that lets the pigment depth carry the room.

Farrow & Ball's well-known colors give you ready partners outside the purple family too. Hague Blue (No. 30), Inchyra Blue, and Studio Green sit comfortably beside these deep purples, while Pointing or Elephant's Breath work as lighter companions. Pick finishes by surface: Estate Emulsion for chalky matt walls, Modern Emulsion where you need washability, and Estate or Modern Eggshell for wood and metal.

Farrow & Ball is a British premium import sold through its own showrooms and authorized stockists, and the paint is mixed to order rather than sitting pre-made on a shelf. Expect to pay roughly $100 or more per gallon, which is two to three times the price of mainstream paint. There is no Color of the Year here; the brand releases new colors and trend predictions each year but openly rejects the single-color idea.

If the price or access is a hurdle, any of these purples can be cross-matched. A paint store can scan or match the color into another line, and our Kompozit deck along with other US brands can get you close on tone. Keep in mind that an exact LRV and the way Farrow & Ball pigments shift in changing light are hard to reproduce perfectly, so always test a sample on your own wall before committing.