Toasted Marshmallow
Behr's marshmallow cream-white, reviewed honestly: the north rooms it warms, the west sun that toasts it yellow, and what to pick instead.
Jessica has spec'd whites and neutrals for more than 300 rooms and keeps a sample wall of painted drawdowns in her studio. Every color review is checked against real reader rooms in the comments and re-tested when a formula changes. About the testing process →
- 1Classic Gray74
- 2Alabaster82
- 3Toasted Marshmallow90
- 4Ultra Pure White97
The Fast Verdict
Toasted Marshmallow is the cream-white you pick when a cool white feels like a doctor's office and you actually want the toast. At LRV 90 it bounces light like a true white; the yellow-beige in it is real, not a whisper, so rooms read cozy rather than painted. Treat it like the lightest chip on a honey strip, because that is what it is: brilliant in north light, visibly toasted the minute hard western sun or a cooler trim white shows up.
Whole-house walls in north and east light · kitchens with oak, brass, and warm stone · ceilings that should not go blue-white · cabinets when you want cream, not gallery white
Your main room takes hard western afternoon sun · trim stays Ultra Pure White or Polar Bear · counters or floors are cool grey · you wanted a true white, not toasted cream
- LRV 90 — ceiling-bright without blue-white glare
- Cozy cream-white that still bounces like a true white in north light
- One-color rooms (walls + trim + ceiling) work; the sheen change is enough
- Flatters oak, walnut, brass, and honey oak instead of turning them orange
- Already sold as ceiling flat and cabinet satin — those jobs are real
- Turns visibly yellow-cream in hard western and late-afternoon sun
- Looks dingy the moment Ultra Pure White, Polar Bear, or Chantilly Lace sits next to it
- Clashes with cool grey quartz, Carrara-look stone, and grey LVP
- High-LRV whites hide poorly — two coats over light, primer plus three over dark
What Color Is Toasted Marshmallow, Really?
A creamy warm white with a yellow-beige base — and the yellow is the whole trick. Behr files 760C-1 in the white family, but it is the lightest chip on a strip that steps down into beige and honey, which is a more honest filing. Most Home Depot whites either dump the warmth (Ultra Pure White, Polar Bear) or lean all the way into cream (Swiss Coffee, Cottage White). Toasted Marshmallow sits in the thin, toasted band: bright enough to pass as white on a ceiling or a north wall, creamy enough that the name is not a joke. Independent matches read it as a low-chroma cream-beige, hue in the yellow, not grey, not peach.
At LRV 90 there is almost no headroom above it. Benjamin Moore Simply White and Behr Natural White sit at the same number; Polar Bear (LRV 94) and Ultra Pure White (LRV 97) are the only common Behr whites that are clearly brighter. That is why this color is a natural ceiling and trim white — it reflects like the top of the deck — and also why you cannot rescue it with a whiter trim. A cooler or brighter neighbor does not add contrast; it just makes Toasted Marshmallow look like unwashed cream. The one-color rule is not a style preference here. It is physics.
Undertone in one line: yellow-cream with a beige toast, never pink and never green. In north light the yellow is mostly cancelled and the wall reads as a quietly warm white. In west sun and under 2700K lamps the toast is the whole story. If your sample looks dingy, look at the trim next to it before you blame the gallon. If it looks butter-yellow at 5pm, that is the 760C strip telling the truth.
Where It Shines
Give it north or east daylight, oak, and no brighter white nearby, and it does the rare thing a cream-white is supposed to do: look white enough to open the room, cream enough that the house feels finished instead of clinical. Ceilings are a job Home Depot already sells it for. Flat Toasted Marshmallow overhead stays bright without the blue-white glare builder ceiling paint throws against warm walls, and the same gallon in satin on cabinets or semi-gloss on trim will carry a whole house if you let the sheen, not a second white, make the edge.
Where It Fails
Almost every unhappy Toasted Marshmallow story is a yellow-white story in a Behr can. The toast is real, it is the point of the color, and three situations make it loud. None of them are a bad mix — but if your room matches one, this is not your white, and another coat will not hide it.
This is the same complaint that follows Simply White around Houzz: from about four o'clock the warm flood has nowhere to hide, and the walls go creamy, too warm, almost yellow — toasted, which is honest and also not what most people meant by white. If the room you live in faces west, sample at 5pm or pick a cleaner white — Chantilly Lace (OC-65, LRV 90) holds the sun without going cream.
The most common pairing mistake in a Home Depot house: Toasted Marshmallow walls, Ultra Pure White (W-B-500, LRV 97) or Polar Bear (W-F-200, LRV 94) on the trim or ceiling. The brighter white wins, and Toasted Marshmallow looks dingy. Chantilly Lace trim does the same trick at the same LRV — the temperature gap, not the brightness, is enough. Run Toasted Marshmallow on walls, trim, and ceiling and let eggshell / semi-gloss / flat separate the planes, or drop it and paint the whole room the cleaner white.
Cool stone and grey plank sit at the opposite temperature and shove the yellow-beige into the open. Cabinets that looked softly white on the chip read cream next to grey-veined quartz and stainless; walls above grey LVP pick up a faint nicotine cast. With cool floors and counters, use a cleaner white — Ultra Pure White on cabinets, or Chantilly Lace if you want the gallery version — and keep Toasted Marshmallow for a warmer room.
Room by Room
Home Depot mixes this SKU as a ceiling flat, and that is the tell. At LRV 90 it is bright enough to disappear overhead, and the yellow-beige stops the plane from reading blue against warm walls — the exact complaint with builder-grade Ultra Pure White ceilings. Flat sheen; same color as the walls if you can.
East and north living rooms are its home turf: bright, quiet, slightly toasted. South is lovely until mid-afternoon, when the cream steps forward. A west living room is the skip. Eggshell walls; same color on trim in semi-gloss so the room does not grow a dingy halo around the casings.
On walls or cabinets it warms a wood-and-brass kitchen without the clinical edge of Ultra Pure White. Warm quartz, butcher block, soapstone, terracotta: all fine. Grey quartz and a wall of stainless: the yellow shows, and you will wish you had sampled a door against the slab. Satin enamel — Home Depot already sells this SKU that way.
North and east bedrooms stay cream and restful. Under 2700K lamps it turns marshmallow-cozy at night, which is the point of the name for some people and dingy for others. 3000K–3500K keeps it closer to white after dark. If the bedroom faces west, this is not the gallon.
Semi-gloss on casings and doors, eggshell on the hall walls, same gallon. It reads as painted woodwork rather than plastic-bright, and it is kind to oak. Do not park Polar Bear or Ultra Pure White next to it. If you want contrast, go darker on the door, never brighter on the casing.
Warm marble, cream tile, wood vanities, brass: it looks settled and expensive. Grey porcelain, blue-grey subway, chrome-and-Carrara: it argues, and the wall goes yellow. Satin or a bath-rated eggshell for wipe-down either way.
Your Light Is the Risk
Cool grey daylight cancels most of the yellow and leaves a clean, quietly creamy white. This is the exposure the color can still pass as white in.
From about four o'clock the yellow-beige lands hard and the walls go toasted. Sample this hour or skip the color in a west room.
East rooms glow softly in the morning and settle to a quiet cream-white by noon. South rooms cream up through the afternoon; west rooms make the shift all at once at golden hour.
2700K lamps pull the toast forward — marshmallow-cozy to some, dingy to others. 3000K–3500K keeps it closer to true white. Cool LEDs flatten it. Swap bulbs before you swap paint.
Most complaints about Toasted Marshmallow are a light mismatch. Upload a photo of your actual room and see it on your walls — then ask for the same wall in north light or evening lamps before you buy a single sample.
Need It From Another Brand?
Any paint counter can custom-tint Behr 760C-1 directly. If you would rather stay in one brand's own deck, these are the closest stock matches, measured as ΔE2000. Under 2 is a difference you will not see on the wall.
| Brand | Closest color | ΔE | LRV | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sherwin-Williams | CheviotSW 9503 · Sherwin-Williams | 1.5 | 89 | Color page → |
| Benjamin Moore | Mountain Peak White2148-70 · Benjamin Moore | 0.9 | 91 | Color page → |
| Valspar | Abel8007-8C · Valspar | 1.4 | 90 | Color page → |
| PPG / Glidden | White ChipPPG15-06 · PPG / Glidden | 1.6 | 87 | Color page → |
| Glidden | Linwood Beach White71YY 87/078 · Glidden | 1.7 | 87 | Color page → |
| Dutch Boy | Brightened Cream005W · Dutch Boy | 0.8 | 89 | Color page → |
Similar Behr Colors
The nearest shades to Toasted Marshmallow within Behr's own range, ranked by perceptual color distance — useful when you want the same look a touch lighter, darker, or warmer.
WCAG 2.1: AA is 4.5 : 1 for normal text, 3 : 1 for large text, AAA is 7 : 1.
Toasted Marshmallow vs the Colors You're Also Considering
Every Toasted Marshmallow sample board has the same rivals on it. The numbers show the real lightness gap — then it comes down to which risk you would rather live with.
Pick this when you want the marshmallow cream to show: yellow-beige from a honey strip, not a crisp white with a whisper.
Behr DC-005 · LRV 90Natural WhitePick this if you want the Designer Collection Simply White analog that still tries to pass as white — same LRV, a hair less toasted.
Pick this when you are at Home Depot and want the cozier, more clearly cream version of that same LRV 90 job.
Benjamin Moore OC-117 · LRV 90Simply WhitePick this if you want the famous Benjamin Moore formula — brilliant white with the same west-sun yellow and a painter who already knows it.
Pick this when you still want the extra bounce of LRV 90 and a color that can pass as white in north light.
Behr W-B-700 · LRV 87Swiss CoffeePick this when you actually want cream — it is the warmest of the safe off-whites, and it shows.
Pick this when you still want the wall to bounce like a white, with only a toast of cream, not a full farmhouse pour.
Behr 13 · LRV 82Cottage WhitePick this if you want the farmhouse cream that never learned to be neutral — deeper, more committed, less ceiling-bright.
Inside Behr, Natural White DC-005, #F7F4E8 at LRV 90, is almost the same paint, and Divine Pleasure W-B-210, #F5F4E7 at LRV 90, sits equally close. Ivory Mist 750C-1 at LRV 91 is a hair brighter and slightly greener, while Calla Lily PWN-11 at LRV 91 and White Veil OR-W14 at LRV 91 are warmer.
Across brands, several colors land close enough to swap. Dunn-Edwards Swiss Coffee DEW341 at 0.54, Farrow and Ball Wimborne White No. 239 at LRV 89 and 0.58, Backdrop Tabula Rasa at 0.58, Dutch Boy Brightened Cream 005W at 0.81, and Benjamin Moore Mountain Peak White 2148-70 at LRV 91 and 0.9 are all effectively the same color on a wall.
A step further out, Valspar Abel 8007-8C at 1.4 and Sherwin-Williams Cheviot SW 9503 at LRV 89 and 1.52 are visually identical in normal room light. Magnolia Home True White JG-21 at 3.18 is very close but should be sampled, since it trades the yellow for a cooler cast.
Toasted Marshmallow Coordinating Colors
Stay on the warm side of the fence and never introduce a brighter, cooler white. Toasted Marshmallow flatters warm beiges, easy sages, deep navies, and near-blacks — and it argues with icy greys, blue-grey stone, and any trim white that out-brights it. These are the partners that keep showing up in rooms that work:
The Lightest Chip on a Honey Strip
Toasted Marshmallow is not a Color of the Year and it has no viral kitchen. It is a classic-deck white, 760C-1, the lightest chip on a strip that steps down into beige and honey. That family is the color: yellow-beige cream, airy at LRV 90, toasted when the light goes warm. Independent spectrophotometer reads put the hue in the yellow and the chroma low enough to stay quiet — cream, not butter — until a west window or a cooler neighbor turns the volume up.
Home Depot already tells you the two jobs it does: the SKU is mixed as a ceiling flat and as a satin enamel for cabinets, doors, and trim. It is the gallon you buy when Ultra Pure White feels like a doctor's office and Swiss Coffee feels like coffee. If you arrived from a search for a cozy alternative to a cool white, this is that can. If you arrived hoping it would still look like gallery white at 5pm, sample Simply White's west-sun problem on this chip before you buy gallons.
Toasted Marshmallow With Wood Tones and Floors
Warm wood is the easy yes. Oak — red, white, honey — walnut, butcher block, and cedar all sit comfortably against it because the yellow in the paint meets the yellow in the wood halfway. Icy whites make honey oak look aggressively orange; Toasted Marshmallow softens that orange instead of amplifying it, which is why it is kinder to a 1990s trim-and-floor package than Polar Bear will ever be.
The floor that needs a sample first is cool grey LVP or grey-washed oak. Grey plank pulls the yellow-beige into relief, and the wall can read faintly nicotine against it. It is not always a dealbreaker — a large warm rug and brass lamps pull it back — but tape a big sample above the actual floor and look at 5pm before you paint the room. White oak and natural maple are safe; orange builder oak is safer here than it is next to a true bright white.
Metals are straightforward: unlacquered brass, antique bronze, and matte black all agree with it. Polished chrome and stainless are the ones that lean cold and make the yellow show, which is why a stainless-heavy kitchen is a skip.
Three Ready Palettes Built on Toasted Marshmallow
A color is never alone on the wall. These are complete combinations in the 60-30-10 pattern, with the reason each one holds together. Every one opens in the visualizer.
One cream-white at three sheens is how you use LRV 90 without inventing a dingy halo around the trim. Cracked Pepper on the door is the single dark note the scheme needs — Behr's chameleon black, not a second white.
Try this palette in your roomEven Better Beige skipped the yellow, so the walls stay beige instead of stacking toast on toast; Toasted Marshmallow on the boxes keeps the kitchen bright without the blue hit of Ultra Pure White. Hale Navy on the island grounds the cream and loves brass.
Try this palette in your roomAgreeable Gray is the safest greige in decent light, and a warm ceiling white is what keeps it from going cold overhead. Evergreen Fog on a door is one muted green note so the scheme does not flatten into beige-and-cream only.
Try this palette in your roomToasted Marshmallow FAQ
Is Toasted Marshmallow warm or cool?
Warm — the toasted kind. The undertone is yellow-beige, and at LRV 90 it is spread thin enough that north rooms still read as a finished white rather than cream. North light cancels the yellow; west sun and 2700K bulbs put the toast back. It is never icy and never grey.
Is it the same as Natural White or Simply White?
Same neighborhood, not the same can. All three sit at LRV 90 with a yellow in them. Natural White is Behr's Designer Collection Simply White analog — a crisp white with a delicate yellow. Simply White is the famous Benjamin Moore version, brilliant until west sun hits it. Toasted Marshmallow is the classic-deck cream from a honey-beige strip, so the toast shows sooner. If you already ruled Simply White out because of western windows, do not expect 760C-1 to behave differently.
What trim white goes with Toasted Marshmallow walls?
Toasted Marshmallow itself, in semi-gloss. Ultra Pure White, Polar Bear, or Chantilly Lace next to it makes the walls look dingy — the most common mistake with this color. There is almost no brighter white that still matches its temperature. If you want contrast, go darker on the door, never brighter on the casing.
Is it good for ceilings?
That is one of its real jobs. Home Depot sells the SKU as a ceiling flat. LRV 90 is ceiling-bright, and the yellow-beige keeps the overhead plane from going blue-white against warm walls, which is the usual complaint with Ultra Pure White on the ceiling. Use flat. If the walls are also Toasted Marshmallow, even better — one color, two sheens.
Will it look yellow?
In west afternoon sun, yes — toasted, which is the name doing what it says. Under 2700K lamps, a little. Next to a cooler white, it will look cream even if the light is fine. In north or east daylight on its own, most people never call it yellow. Sample a big board at 5pm in the actual room before you buy gallons.
How many coats does it take?
Two over any light existing color, after a white primer if you are covering something dark or saturated. High-LRV whites have almost no hiding power of their own — stretching the first coat thin is how you get flashing. Keep a wet edge and do not skip the primer over red, navy, or patched drywall.
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