Aegean Teal
Benjamin Moore's 2021 Color of the Year, reviewed honestly: the light that turns it a rich blue-green, the light that turns it muddy gray, and where it actually earns its keep.
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 →
- 1Salamander6
- 2Hidden Gem14
- 3Aegean Teal25
- 4Van Courtland Blue31
- 5Wythe Blue48
The Fast Verdict
Aegean Teal won Benjamin Moore's 2021 Color of the Year and then quietly became something more useful than a trend: a grayed-down blue-green with enough gray in it to read as a neutral from across the room and enough teal in it to feel considered up close. It rarely gets used as a whole-room statement color — its real career is on kitchen islands, front doors, and powder rooms, where its LRV 25 depth reads as a deliberate, expensive-looking choice instead of a loud one. Good daylight and warm wood make it glow; a dim room with cool light flattens it into a forgettable gray-green.
Kitchen islands and cabinetry · front doors and exterior shutters · powder rooms and other small commitments · brass hardware and oak or walnut wood tones
You want a true saturated jewel-tone teal · your room runs dim and north-facing with no lamps · you're pairing it with cool white marble or chrome · you want it as the whole-house wall color, not an accent
- A Color of the Year with real staying power — still a top island and door color years later
- Grayed-down enough to feel considered, not trendy or dated
- Genuinely flatters brass, oak, and walnut
- Deep enough (LRV 25) to hold color in bright rooms without looking flat
- Scales down beautifully — a powder room or island gets full drama with zero whole-house risk
- Goes flat, muddy gray-green in dim or north-facing rooms
- Too reserved to deliver a true saturated jewel-tone look
- Fights cool white trim, chrome, and cool-toned stone
- As a full-room wall color it's more light-dependent than most buyers expect from a famous Color-of-the-Year pick
What Color Is Aegean Teal, Really?
Aegean Teal is Benjamin Moore's 2021 Color of the Year, part of the Color Trends 2021 palette the brand built around a single idea: a quiet, restorative blue-green for a year most people spent looking at their own walls. Years on, that history mostly explains why the color is so easy to find in stock photos and so rarely the whole-room gamble its Color-of-the-Year badge implies — designers reach for it as an accent, not a wall-to-wall statement, and that is exactly where it performs best.
At LRV 25 it sits in genuine mid-depth territory — noticeably darker than a spa blue like Palladian Blue (LRV 53), noticeably lighter than a true near-black like BM's own Wrought Iron (LRV 6). That depth explains how it behaves: in warm daylight the blue-green holds together and reads rich and layered, almost slate-like from a distance and clearly teal up close. Take the warmth away — an overcast afternoon, a north-facing room, cool LED bulbs — and the gray anchor built into this color takes over, settling into a quieter, more restrained gray-green that reads far more neutral than the fan-deck chip suggests.
Undertone in one line: blue-green with real gray mixed in, never a bright turquoise and never quite navy. If your sample looks plain gray, that's the light, not the paint; if it looks vividly teal in a chip photo online, that photo was shot in ideal light most rooms don't have.
Where It Shines
Give it a kitchen island, a front door, or a small room with real light and warm wood nearby, and Aegean Teal earns the Color of the Year title. It has become one of the most photographed kitchen island colors of the last five years for a reason: it reads as depth and intention next to white perimeter cabinets, and it does not fight brass or oak the way a colder blue would. Front doors are its other signature job — against a white or greige house, it is distinctive without looking like a dare.
Where It Fails
Almost every disappointed Aegean Teal story comes from one of three situations, and all three were predictable before the first coat. None of them are the paint's fault — but if your room or your plan matches one, this color will let you down.
The gray anchor built into this color is a feature in good light and a liability without it: cool, flat daylight pulls the blue-green back and leaves something closer to a plain, muted gray. It photographs beautifully in a sunny listing and then reads noticeably flatter in an actual dim den. Test a large sample on the real wall, at the real time of day you use the room, before committing.
Aegean Teal was built to be a quiet, grayed color, not a jewel-tone showstopper. Owners who picked it hoping for the saturated punch of a true peacock or turquoise are usually let down by how reserved it looks on four full walls in average light — that drama lives in colors like BM's own Peacock Blue, not here.
Aegean Teal is a cool color at heart, and pairing it with more cool — icy white trim, chrome faucets, gray-blue quartz — pushes the whole room toward flat and sterile instead of rich. It needs a warm partner (brass, oak, a creamy white) to look considered instead of accidental.
Room by Room
Against white or off-white perimeter cabinets, Aegean Teal on the island is one of the most photographed uses of this color and one of the defining bold cabinet colors of the last five years: brass pulls, a butcher-block or wood countertop, and warm pendant light all flatter it. Satin cabinet enamel, not wall eggshell.
On an exterior door against a white, greige, or brick house, full daylight reads it as a confident, grounded blue-green rather than the muted color it can be indoors. Semi-gloss or gloss exterior enamel; brass or black hardware both work.
A powder room is small enough to drench in a deeper color without the light-dependency risk of a full living room, and Aegean Teal in that dose reads custom and expensive. Add a brass sconce and it looks finished, not accidental.
In a south- or west-facing room with good light it can work as a moody, grounded wall color, but it demands warm lamps at night and a warm-toned floor. In a dim or north-facing room this is the riskiest use of the color — sample big before you commit four walls.
Low, considered light is actually flattering here, closer to the color's evening character. Walnut shelving, brass lamp light, and leather furniture are its natural company; it reads focused rather than gloomy.
On shutters or trim against a white or cream house, it holds its blue-green identity in full sun far better than it does on a shaded interior wall — one of the more dependable exterior uses in the BM deck.
Your Light Is the Risk
Real sun keeps the blue-green intact and lets the gray recede — the color at its most confident, indoors or on a front door.
Cool, flat daylight drains the color to a muddy gray-green. The single biggest reason owners feel let down by their sample.
Morning cool and flat, midday clearly teal, late afternoon warmer and deeper — expect real movement if the room gets more than one exposure.
2700K lamps pull it toward a warmer, slate-teal glow at night; cool LEDs push it back toward flat gray-green — bulb choice matters as much as wall prep.
Most complaints about Aegean Teal 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 Benjamin Moore 2136-40 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 | Blustery SkySW 9140 · Sherwin-Williams | 4.3 | 22 | Color page → |
| Behr | Polaris BluePPU13-06 · Behr | 0.6 | 23 | Color page → |
| Valspar | Classic DamaskV101-5 · Valspar | 1.7 | 22.5 | Color page → |
| PPG / Glidden | Twilight StrollPPG10-03 · PPG / Glidden | 0.8 | 24 | Color page → |
| Glidden | Twilight StrollPPG10-03 · Glidden | 1.4 | 23 | Color page → |
| Dutch Boy | Felted Blue430-5DB · Dutch Boy | 4.8 | 23 | Color page → |
Similar Benjamin Moore Colors
The nearest shades to Aegean Teal within Benjamin Moore'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.
Aegean Teal vs the Colors You're Also Considering
Every Aegean Teal 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 for the quieter, grayed-down version that reads as a neutral from across the room.
Benjamin Moore 2049-40 · LRV 35Peacock BluePick this if you want the saturated, true jewel-tone teal Aegean Teal only hints at.
Pick this for the Benjamin Moore version, with a decade of documented island and door rooms to sample against.
Behr BXC-36 · LRV 25Aegean BluePick this if your store only carries Behr — it lands at nearly the same depth and hue, without the Color-of-the-Year price premium.
Blue Echo AF-505, LRV 23, is the closest neighbor in the line. It is two points darker and a shade bluer, so on a wall it feels slightly heavier and less green. Blue Dusk 1644, LRV 24, goes further in that direction; its hex #6E8791 carries more blue, which shows clearly next to Aegean Teal. Templeton Gray HC-161, LRV 24, is the gray option, with the teal pulled back almost to a neutral.
Across brands, Behr Polaris Blue PPU13-06 at LRV 23 and PPG Twilight Stroll PPG10-03 at LRV 24 are effectively the same color, with deltaE values of 0.6 and 0.83. Valspar Classic Damask V101-5, LRV 22.5, and Rodda Shady Pier R075, LRV 22, are visually identical in normal room light. Sherwin-Williams Blustery Sky SW 9140 and Farrow & Ball De Nimes No. 299 are close but visibly different side by side, both a little darker and bluer.
Aegean Teal Coordinating Colors
The pairing rule here is straightforward: bring warm partners to a cool color. White Dove or Swiss Coffee for trim and walls, brass and oak or walnut for materials, and one true dark — Wrought Iron or Kendall Charcoal — if the room needs a grounding note. These are the colors that keep showing up next to it in rooms that work:
The 2021 Color of the Year, Years Later
Benjamin Moore picked Aegean Teal for 2021 as part of a palette the brand built around retreat and calm — a quiet blue-green for a year most people spent almost entirely inside their own houses. It followed First Light, 2020's soft pink, and was followed by October Mist's sage green in 2022 — three years running of the brand reaching for muted, livable colors instead of anything loud.
What actually happened to the color afterward tells you more than the launch campaign did. It never became a whole-room wall-color trend the way some Colors of the Year do; instead it settled into a specific, durable job — kitchen islands, front doors, powder rooms — where its gray base and mid-depth LRV let it read as a considered accent rather than a statement. Years on, that narrower use is arguably why it hasn't dated: a color this grayed down doesn't scream any particular year.
Aegean Teal With Wood Tones and Floors
Warm wood is this color's best partner — walnut, butcher block, and warm oak all bring exactly the warmth a cool blue-green needs to avoid looking sterile. On a kitchen island next to a butcher-block counter or against walnut open shelving, it looks deliberate rather than cold.
Honey or golden oak floors are the one combination worth testing first. Teal sits close to the complement of orange, so a strongly orange-toned floor can make the paint look slightly duller and grayer, while the floor itself gets pushed a touch more orange. It's not the flat clash a true purple gets with honey oak, but the effect is real in a bright room — a jute or wool rug in a warm tone breaks the contrast if the floor is staying. Pale oak, white oak, and walnut floors have no such issue.
Three Ready Palettes Built on Aegean Teal
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.
Aegean Teal on the island next to White Dove perimeter cabinets is the single most-repeated version of this color online, and it works because both sides get warm brass to bridge them; Wrought Iron on a pantry door or window frame adds one true dark note so the kitchen doesn't read as two neutrals plus one accent.
Try this palette in your roomA crisp, cool white body with charcoal shutters is the classic canvas for a jewel-tone door — Chantilly Lace keeps the house reading modern and clean, and the door gets to be the only saturated color on the facade.
Try this palette in your roomSmall rooms take depth well — full Aegean Teal walls under a warm Swiss Coffee ceiling keep the box from feeling like a cave, and Wrought Iron on the door and mirror frame adds the one near-black note that makes a powder room look designed on purpose.
Try this palette in your roomAegean Teal FAQ
Is Aegean Teal blue or green?
Both, evenly — a genuine blue-green with a real amount of gray mixed in, so it reads more like a muted teal than a clean blue or clean green. In flat light the gray can dominate and it looks closer to a neutral gray-green; in real daylight the blue-green comes forward clearly.
Is Aegean Teal too dark for a small room?
At LRV 25 it's mid-depth, not dark — closer to a medium slate than a near-black navy. Small rooms with real daylight or good lamps (a powder room, for example) actually handle it well; the risk is a small room with no natural light at all, where any mid-depth color reads heavy.
What white goes with Aegean Teal?
A warm white — White Dove or Swiss Coffee — keeps the pairing soft and lets the teal read rich rather than cold. A stark, cool white like Chantilly Lace works too, but only in a room with strong daylight; in dim light the contrast can make the teal look flat by comparison.
Does Aegean Teal work on kitchen cabinets?
It's one of the most common island colors in the country for exactly this reason — deep enough to feel intentional against white perimeter cabinets, and it flatters brass hardware and butcher block. Use a satin urethane-fortified cabinet enamel, not a wall paint.
Is Aegean Teal still in style, or did it date itself as a Color of the Year pick?
It's aged better than most Color of the Year picks because it was never a loud trend color to begin with — the gray in it keeps it closer to a neutral than a fad. It's less common now as a whole-room wall color than it was around its launch, but as an island, door, and powder-room color it hasn't slowed down.
What's the difference between Aegean Teal and Peacock Blue?
Peacock Blue (BM 2049-40) is a true saturated jewel-tone teal at LRV 35 — brighter and more assertive. Aegean Teal is grayed down and a step deeper at LRV 25, built to read as a considered neutral rather than a statement color. If you want drama, go Peacock; if you want quiet depth, Aegean Teal is the safer, more versatile pick.
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