November Rain
The Benjamin Moore neutral that's officially green and reads like warm cream, reviewed honestly: where it glows, where it goes flat, 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 →
- 1Agreeable Gray60
- 2Balboa Mist66
- 3November Rain71
- 4Pearly White77
- 5Dover White83
The Fast Verdict
November Rain is Benjamin Moore's official green, and almost nobody who paints a room with it sees green. What actually shows up is a soft, high-LRV off-white that leans warm cream in real daylight and slides toward quiet gray the moment the sun goes behind a cloud — the green undertone BM promises stays a rumor underneath, there to keep the color from tipping yellow or icy rather than to visibly tint the wall. It is a genuinely well-mannered neutral for open floor plans and traditional exteriors; just buy it for what it does, not for what the name and the official swatch description suggest.
Open floor plans that need one color to flow room to room · traditional-style exteriors with white trim or navy accents · rooms with real daylight, morning or south · anyone who wants a whisper of green without a wall that reads green
Your room stays dim or north-facing most of the day · you actually want a wall that reads visibly green · your trim is a brighter white you have no plans to repaint alongside it · you're shopping by name only — Sherwin-Williams sells a noticeably cooler blue-gray under the same "November Rain" name
- High LRV (71) keeps rooms bright without going stark white
- Reads as a genuinely warm, easy cream in real daylight
- Flows through open floor plans without a hard color break
- A legitimate traditional-exterior color for siding, trim and shutters
- Pairs cleanly with both soft white trim and warm wood tones
- The advertised green undertone is nearly invisible in most real rooms
- Goes flat, cool gray in dim or north-facing spaces
- Easily confused by name with a much cooler Sherwin-Williams color
- Not distinctive enough if you want a wall that reads as a color, not a neutral
What Color Is November Rain, Really?
November Rain sits in Benjamin Moore's Color Preview collection with an official description of "a comforting off-white misted with a touch of green," and BM files it under green on the color deck. In practice, almost nobody who paints a room this color reports seeing green. Independent color reviewers describe it landing as a warm, creamy off-white in real daylight — the green undertone is there in the formula, but it behaves like a stabilizer that keeps the cream from tipping yellow, not like a tint you could point to on the wall. That gap between the label and the lived experience is the single most useful thing to know before buying a sample.
At LRV 71 it sits well below stark whites like Simply White (91) or Chantilly Lace (92), and even below the classic soft whites Swiss Coffee (84) and White Dove (85) — this is a light neutral with real body, not a near-white. It reflects enough light to keep a room from feeling closed in, but it holds its color rather than washing out, which is why open-plan homes and hallways use it as a connective-tissue color: it reads as "a color decision was made here," quietly, without competing with furniture, wood or art.
Undertone in one line: green on paper, warm cream in sunny rooms, quiet gray in shade — never a wall you would describe as green. If your sample looks distinctly cool and flat, that is low light draining the warmth, not a defect; if it looks distinctly warm and creamy, that is south or west sun doing exactly what the reviewers describe.
Where It Shines
Give it an open floor plan and real daylight and it does the job it was built for: one calm, warm-leaning neutral that carries from the entry through the living room into the kitchen without a single hard color break. Its other strong suit is traditional exteriors — as siding, or on trim, columns and shutters, where the LRV 71 body reads crisp against white trim and grounded against navy, brick or stone, without the stark, faintly plastic look a true white can give a facade.
Where It Fails
Almost every disappointed review of November Rain comes from one of three situations, and all three are predictable before the first coat. None of them are the paint's fault — but if your room or your expectations match one, this is not your color, and a bigger sample will only confirm it.
Cool daylight strips out the little warmth November Rain has and leaves a flat, slightly lifeless gray — the green never had a chance to show and now the cream is gone too. It did not fail; the light did. Add warm 2700K lamps, or move to a color built for shade, like Edgecomb Gray.
Benjamin Moore's own copy calls this "a touch of green," and on the wall it mostly is not. If a genuinely visible sage is the goal, this is the wrong color — Soft Fern is the closest true green at a similar depth in the BM deck, and even that one is described as soft.
Sherwin-Williams sells its own, noticeably cooler blue-gray under the same name. If a painter, a spec sheet or an old swatch just says "November Rain" with no brand or SKU attached, confirm you are getting Benjamin Moore 2142-60 before you buy five gallons.
Room by Room
With morning or south daylight it is a calm, warm-leaning backdrop for wood furniture and neutral upholstery. Eggshell finish; use the same color on trim in semi-gloss if you want the true one-color flow.
Reads well behind oak cabinetry, butcher block or warm stone. It is not marketed or built as a cabinet color the way a dedicated cabinet enamel line is, and its subtlety means it will not make a design statement on cabinetry — pick a deeper or more decisive color if you want the kitchen to lead.
Under warm 2700K lamps it turns cozy and cream at night. If the room faces north and stays dim during the day, it will read gray and flat unless the lamps are doing real work.
With warm marble, wood vanities and brass it stays soft and warm. Against cool blue-gray tile or stark white fixtures, the color's own coolness in low light becomes more obvious — sample it against your actual tile before committing.
This is the color's real strength: carrying an open floor plan from room to room without a jarring seam. It reads as one deliberate neutral decision rather than a series of separate wall colors.
A legitimate siding, trim, column and shutter color for traditional-style houses. Full sun brings out more warmth than an interior room ever sees; the shaded side of the house reads cooler and grayer, so walk the whole exterior before ordering paint.
Your Light Is the Risk
Real sun brings out the warm, creamy side reviewers describe — this is where the color looks most finished, not where it looks most green.
Cool, flat light strips out the little warmth it has and leaves a slightly lifeless gray with no green to fall back on. Test before committing a whole floor plan.
Warmer and creamier at the sun hours, quieter and more gray-leaning the rest of the day — a gentle shift, not a personality change.
2700K bulbs push it further into warm cream; cool white LEDs flatten it back toward gray. Swap the bulb before you swap the paint.
Most complaints about November Rain 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 2142-60 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 | Oyster WhiteSW 7637 · Sherwin-Williams | 1.6 | 72 | Color page → |
| Behr | Light GraniteN340-1 · Behr | 1.5 | 72 | Color page → |
| Valspar | Salute7006-12 · Valspar | 1.5 | 72.4 | Color page → |
| PPG / Glidden | Southern BreezePPG1097-2 · PPG / Glidden | 2.1 | 73 | Color page → |
| Glidden | Fossil StonePPG1102-2 · Glidden | 2.0 | 72 | Color page → |
| Dutch Boy | Canvased015W · Dutch Boy | 3.0 | 73 | Color page → |
Similar Benjamin Moore Colors
The nearest shades to November Rain 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.
November Rain vs the Colors You're Also Considering
Every November Rain 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 if you want the higher LRV and the faint green undertone, even knowing you will rarely see it.
Benjamin Moore OC-20 · LRV 67Pale OakPick this if you want the same real-daylight-versus-gray-day mood swing but a color that commits to warm greige instead of a green rumor.
Pick this if you would rather the daily shift lean warm and creamy than cool and gray.
Benjamin Moore OC-52 · LRV 65Gray OwlPick this if you want a true light gray with no warm-cream pretense — it shifts with the light too, but toward blue-gray, not cream.
Inside the deck, Halo OC-46 and Going to the Chapel 1527 both sit at #E0DED1 with LRV 72, one digit off in hex, so they are interchangeable in practice. Hushed Hue 1520 at #E2DECF, LRV 71, is slightly warmer and less green. Fog Mist OC-31 at #E2DDD0, LRV 72, splits the difference. Note that Benjamin Moore lists the OC-50 version of November Rain at LRV 73 against 71 for 2142-60, which is within normal measurement variation.
Across brands, Behr Chocolate Froth 720C-2 at deltaE 0.46 and Diamond Vogel Moss Island 0357 at 0.48 are effective matches. Clare No Filter at 0.99, Magnolia Home One Horn White JG-11 at 1.27, and Sherwin-Williams Oyster White SW 7637 at 1.65 are visually identical in normal room light.
Dunn-Edwards Pueblo White DET675 at 2.17 and Dutch Boy Canvased 015W at 2.97 are very close but worth sampling first, since both carry more yellow.
November Rain Coordinating Colors
The safest coordinating move with November Rain is to stay inside its own warm-neutral family rather than fight it with a true cool gray. It sits comfortably next to other light BM neutrals, takes a navy or blue-gray accent well, and mostly argues with stark, blue-leaning whites that make its warmth look dingy by comparison. These are the partners that show up again and again in real rooms and exteriors:
November Rain on Exteriors
Outside, November Rain does real work as a traditional-home siding color, and its modest LRV 71 body is exactly why it holds up there: bright enough to read fresh and current, restrained enough not to fight brick, stone or a dark roofline the way a true white can. It shows up across siding, brick and stucco, and it takes trim, columns and shutters in either a matching or a contrasting color without looking mismatched.
The pairing decides the result, the same way it does indoors. Simply White trim gives the house crisp, confident edges; Hale Navy at the door and shutters is the classic traditional contrast. What to expect from the light: the sun-facing elevation will show more of the color's warmth, while the shaded side reads cooler and grayer — walk the whole house with a sample before ordering paint, not just the front-facing wall.
The Green That Isn't There
Every independent review of November Rain circles back to the same observation: Benjamin Moore calls it green, and the wall mostly disagrees. That is not a flaw in the paint — undertones this faint are genuinely subtle, and "a touch of green" is a defensible read of the raw formula sitting on a color strip next to true off-whites. It is a mismatch between the marketing language and what a normal room, at normal light levels, actually shows a homeowner standing in front of it.
The practical takeaway is simple: treat the "touch of green" as a technical footnote, not a design promise. Buy November Rain because you want a warm, high-LRV neutral that flows through an open floor plan and behaves well on a traditional exterior — and let the green stay exactly where most reviewers found it, in the name and the fine print, not on the wall.
Three Ready Palettes Built on November Rain
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.
November Rain and White Dove share enough warmth that the sheen change alone separates wall from trim, so an open floor plan reads as one calm color room to room. Wolf Gray supplies the single deliberate dark note — a built-in, a fireplace surround, an accent wall — without breaking the neutral mood.
Try this palette in your roomSimply White gives the trim real crispness against November Rain's softer, quieter body, and Hale Navy supplies the one confident dark note at the door — the classic traditional-home combination the color was built to wear.
Try this palette in your roomSwiss Coffee's extra cream keeps the trim from reading stark against November Rain's cooler-leaning body, and Wolf Gray adds one grounded blue-gray accent for a headboard wall or furniture piece without turning the whole room into a blue-gray scheme.
Try this palette in your roomNovember Rain FAQ
Is November Rain green or gray?
Officially green — Benjamin Moore's own description calls it "a comforting off-white misted with a touch of green," and it is filed in the green family. On an actual wall, most reviewers say the green mostly disappears and the color reads as a warm off-white or, in duller light, a quiet gray. Buy it for that warm-neutral behavior, not for a green wall.
Is it warm or cool?
Warm-leaning in real daylight, cooler and quieter in shade. The high LRV (71) means it is reflecting a lot of light either way, so the shift between "warm cream" and "quiet gray" is more noticeable than it would be on a deeper color — sample it in your actual room at your actual light before committing.
What trim white goes with November Rain?
Benjamin Moore's own suggestions include Swiss Coffee and White Dove for a soft, low-contrast look, or Chantilly Lace and Simply White if you want the trim to read crisper and brighter than the wall. Simply White is also the go-to trim on exteriors, often paired with Hale Navy at the door.
Does it work on exteriors?
Yes — it is a legitimate traditional-exterior color for siding, trim, columns and shutters, and it holds up across siding, brick and stucco. Full sun brings out more warmth than any interior room sees; shaded elevations read cooler and grayer, the same split you get indoors.
Is this the same color as Sherwin-Williams' November Rain?
No, and it is a genuine mix-up worth avoiding. Sherwin-Williams also sells a color under the name "November Rain," but it is a noticeably cooler blue-gray — a different formula from a different company. If you are working from a name with no brand or SKU attached, confirm you are getting Benjamin Moore 2142-60.
Does it work with oak floors and wood tones?
Yes, comfortably. Its warm-in-daylight behavior pairs naturally with oak, walnut and other mid-tone woods the way most warm neutrals do. It will not fight wood tones the way a true cool gray can, but it also will not add much color contrast against them — both are working the warm-neutral side of the wheel.
Have you painted with November Rain?
Rate it — one tap helps the next reader decide.
Ask a Question