Color spec
| Brand | Benjamin Moore |
| Name | Cotton Balls |
| SKU | OC-122 |
| Hex | #F5F6EB |
| RGB | 245, 246, 235 |
| HSL | 65°, 38%, 94% |
| LRV | 89 |
| Undertone | near-white with a hint of color |
| Sheens | walls eggshell · trim and doors semi-gloss · ceilings flat · cabinets satin |
| Family | White |
Cotton Balls is the rare white that gives you brightness and warmth at the same time. At LRV 89 it throws back nearly all the light a bright white does, but its cast is a clear soft yellow rather than a cool one, so a room lit by it comes out bright without going clinical. That combination is why designers keep it in their back pocket and why almost nobody blogs about it. Just go in knowing what you bought: this is a bright white, not a creamy one.
What Color Is Cotton Balls, Really?
A bright off-white with a genuine trace of yellow in it — Benjamin Moore's own description is exactly that, and for once the marketing line is the whole story. It lives in the Off-White Collection and carries two numbers, OC-122 and 2145-70, which is the same paint sold under two deck systems and the first reason it confuses people at the store. Color-science measurement puts it in the yellow-green hue family at very low chroma: a lot of light, a little tint, and the tint that is there leans warm.
The useful way to place it is on the brightness ladder. At LRV 89 Cotton Balls sits with the bright whites — Simply White is 91, Chantilly Lace is 92 — and well above the soft whites people usually mean when they say warm white, like White Dove at 85 or Swiss Coffee at 84. But its actual color value is warmer than the bright whites it stands next to. So you get a room lit like a bright-white room with a cast like a cream one. That is a genuinely unusual combination, and it is the entire reason to buy this color.
Undertone in one line: warm yellow, with a faint green edge behind it — never pink, never blue. Owners who sample it beside another bright white often report that Cotton Balls looks slightly green in the comparison. That is the yellow-green base showing itself, and it only appears when there is a whiter white in the frame to measure it against.
Where It Shines
It is at its best in the big everyday room — the family room, the living room, the open main floor — where you need real brightness but the room already has dark wood, leather, a TV wall and a floor that runs warm. A cool bright white in that room looks like a rental; Cotton Balls looks like the room was finished on purpose. Its second home is the one-white house: walls, trim, doors and ceiling all in it, sheen doing the separating, which is exactly how designers who like it actually use it.
Where It Fails — the Honest Part
The complaints about Cotton Balls are unusually consistent, mostly because the color itself is consistent — what varies is what buyers expected. All three failures below are decided before you open the can.
You wanted a soft, creamy white. This is the big one. People arrive at Cotton Balls searching warm white and picture White Dove — soft, quiet, low-glare. Cotton Balls is five LRV points brighter, and five points at the top of the scale is the difference between a room that feels calm and a room that feels lit. In a sun-filled room with pale furniture the warmth stops registering and you are left with brightness. If cozy was the goal, buy White Dove or Swiss Coffee.
Cool gray quartz, white marble, blue-gray tile. Anything cool and hard sitting at eye level makes the yellow step forward, and Cotton Balls goes from bright white to visibly creamy in a single glance. This is the standard bathroom and kitchen regret: the walls looked white on the wall and yellow the day the counters went in. Sample your paint against the stone, not against the drywall.
Beside a blush-warm white — or under a green bounce. Warm whites are not interchangeable. Put Cotton Balls next to a blush-leaning white like BM Alabaster and the yellow-green base shows up as a faint celery cast on the Cotton Balls side. The same thing happens without any neighbor color when a family-room slider looks out at a lawn or a hedge in summer — the bounce is green, the base is green, and they add. Keep the whole house on one white, or at least one temperature.
Room by Room
Family room and living room — its best room
The room this color is worth knowing for. It brightens a space that has a dark TV wall, a leather sofa and warm floors without going cold on you, and at LRV 89 it keeps a north-facing family room from feeling like a basement. Eggshell on walls, the same color in semi-gloss on trim. Watch a summer green bounce if a slider faces the yard.
Kitchen and cabinets — yes, if the counters are warm
Satin Cotton Balls cabinets under warm stone, butcher block or brass look bright and expensive. Against cool gray quartz or white marble it reads creamy and the kitchen loses. Decide at the slab, not at the paint chip.
Bedroom — yes, and it is the designer use
Timothy Corrigan names it one of his two favorite Benjamin Moore whites and uses it in bedrooms against antique furniture, which is the right read: the warmth keeps old wood from looking orange while the brightness keeps the room from getting heavy. Eggshell, 2700K bulbs.
Trim, doors and ceilings — the quiet strength
A warm white at LRV 89 is an excellent ceiling: it lifts the plane without the cold flash of a builder ceiling white. On trim it is crisp enough to hold an edge against mid-tone walls and warm enough that it never looks plastic. Flat overhead, semi-gloss on the woodwork.
Hallways and entry — yes
Hallways run dark and narrow and are exactly where a high-LRV white earns its money. One owner reports it holding up through a mostly north-facing historic row house that usually eats white paint. Eggshell, and use the same white on the doors.
Exterior — workable, but not its strength
Full sun pushes the yellow forward, so a whole house in it reads cream rather than white from the street. It is a better exterior trim white than exterior body white. If you want white siding that stays white in sun, look at a cooler bright white.
The Scorecard
What it gets right
- +Bright and warm at once — an unusual combination at LRV 89
- +Excellent in family rooms with dark wood, leather and warm floors
- +One-white houses work: walls, trim, doors and ceiling all in it
- +Warm enough for north-facing rooms that usually kill white paint
- +A designer favorite that never got trendy, so it never dates
Where it struggles
- −Not the soft, creamy white most warm-white shoppers are picturing
- −Goes visibly creamy beside cool quartz, marble and blue-gray tile
- −Shows a faint green next to blush-warm whites or a summer lawn bounce
- −Barely any real owner photos online — you are sampling with less help
Light by Light
Most complaints about Cotton Balls 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.
TEST IT IN YOUR LIGHT →Cotton Balls vs the Colors You're Also Considering
Every Cotton Balls 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.
Need It From Another Brand?
Any paint counter can custom-tint Benjamin Moore OC-122 directly — but if you would rather stay in one brand's own deck, these are the closest stock matches:
Similar Benjamin Moore colors
closest in the Benjamin Moore deckThe nearest shades to Cotton Balls within Benjamin Moore's own range, ranked by perceptual color distance — useful when you want the same look a touch lighter, darker, or warmer.
Cotton Balls Coordinating Colors
The rule with Cotton Balls is to keep everything on its side of the temperature line. It sits happily over warm greiges, deep warm charcoals and muted greens, and it argues with blue-grays and anything blush. Benjamin Moore's own coordinating list leans the same way. These are the partners that keep showing up in rooms that work:
The White Designers Keep and Shoppers Never Find
Cotton Balls has a strange profile for a paint color: high professional regard, almost no consumer footprint. Timothy Corrigan lists it as one of his two favorite Benjamin Moore whites, and more than one working designer has said that if forced to pick a single white for everything, this would be it. Meanwhile the forums are nearly silent — an owner posting about it on Houzz complained that they simply could not find more about this white online, which is still roughly true today.
The reason is that it never had a moment. Simply White was Color of the Year in 2016 and White Dove became the default answer on every design blog in America; Cotton Balls just sat in the Off-White Collection doing its job. That is worth something practical to you: a color that never trended cannot look dated later. It is also worth a warning — you will do your sampling with less help than usual, so buy two large peel-and-stick boards instead of one, and move them from the brightest wall to the darkest corner across a full day before you commit.
Cotton Balls With Wood Tones and Floors
Warm wood is this color's natural company, and it is more forgiving than most bright whites about which warm wood. Walnut, cherry, antique furniture and mid-tone oak all look better under it than under a cool white, because the wall meets their warmth instead of exposing it. Even orange-leaning builder oak works: the yellow in the paint takes the edge off the orange rather than amplifying it, which is the opposite of what a crisp bright white does in the same room.
The floor that needs a real sample is cool gray LVP or gray-washed wood. Against a cool floor the walls will read distinctly creamy, and in a family room with a lot of exposed floor that difference is visible from the doorway. It is not automatically wrong — plenty of rooms look good with a warm wall over a cool floor — but you should see it before you buy the paint, not after. Metals are easy: brass, bronze and matte black all sit well with it, and polished chrome is the only finish that looks a little cold beside it.
Three Ready Palettes Built on Cotton Balls
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.
Warm whites fail most often against other whites, so the safest way to use this one is to remove the competition: same color on walls, trim and ceiling, with sheen doing the separating. Wrought Iron doors give the scheme its one hard edge without introducing a second white to argue with.
TRY THIS PALETTE →A family room needs one dark place to put the television and the shelves, and Chelsea Gray at LRV 22 is that place without going black. Edgecomb Gray next door shares the same warm base, so the handoff from the bright room to the quieter one never reads as a temperature change.
TRY THIS PALETTE →Cabinets brighter than the walls is the reliable kitchen order, and 16 LRV points of separation reads as intentional rather than as a mismatch. Kendall Charcoal grounds the island; keep the counters warm — cool quartz is the one thing this scheme cannot absorb.
TRY THIS PALETTE →Accessibility (WCAG contrast)
WCAG 2.1: AA = 4.5:1 normal text · AA Large = 3:1 large text · AAA = 7:1 normal text.
The Questions Everyone Asks
Is Cotton Balls warm or cool?
Warm, and more openly warm than most bright whites. Benjamin Moore describes it as a bright white with a trace of yellow, and that is what shows up on a wall. It never reads pink and never reads blue. In cool north light the yellow quiets down and a faint green edge can appear instead.
Is Cotton Balls the same as OC-122 and 2145-70?
Yes — one paint, two catalog numbers. OC-122 is its Off-White Collection number and 2145-70 is its Color Preview number. Order either one and you get the same can. Just do not let a store tell you they are different colors.
Cotton Balls or White Dove?
Brightness decides it. White Dove at LRV 85 is the softer, quieter room; Cotton Balls at 90 is the brighter one that still has warmth in it. Dim rooms and people who want cozy should take White Dove. Rooms that need light — a north-facing family room, a dark hallway — do better with Cotton Balls.
What trim white goes with Cotton Balls walls?
Cotton Balls, in semi-gloss. That is not a cop-out — it is the specific fix for this color, because a brighter or cooler trim white will make the walls read yellow, and a blush-warm trim white will make them read green. One white, two sheens.
Does it work with gray quartz counters?
This is its weakest pairing. Cool gray quartz and white marble pull the yellow forward, and the walls or cabinets go creamy against the stone. Hold a sample directly against the actual slab before you commit — if it looks warm there, it will look warm every day.
Why is it so hard to find photos of this color?
Because it never had a trend moment. It has been quietly recommended by designers for years without becoming a search term, so there is far less owner photography than for White Dove or Simply White. Practically, that means sample bigger than usual: two large boards, moved around the room over a full day.
Will It Work in YOUR Room?
No page can promise how Cotton Balls behaves in your light. Upload a photo and see it on your own walls in seconds — before you spend a cent on samples.
TRY COTTON BALLS ON YOUR ROOM →
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