Halcyon Green. Straw Harvest. Black Bean. White Snow. These are some of the shades Sherwin-Williams selected for its 2026 Colormix Forecast, its best guess as to what color fanatics might gravitate toward in the years to come.
Last released for 2024, the biannual report showcases what Sherwin-Williams calls its “up-and-coming colors” for the next two years and change, according to an announcement from the company. This year’s report — the company’s second ever — encompasses 48 colors divided into four palettes: frosted tints, sunbaked hues, restorative darks, and foundational neutrals.
It’s a slightly different approach from the stylistic trends and thematic capsules (think “poetic reds”) Sherwin-Williams used in 2024, Emily Kantz, color marketing manager at the company, said via email. Instead, this year’s forecast focuses on “emotionally driven color families” and “tonal evolution.”
“The focus on color evolution reflects a shift toward longevity, emotional resonance and refined storytelling,” Kantz explained. “As design moves away from momentary trends, our team wanted to show how color families are progressing over time.”
Sherwin-Williams forecasters wanted to offer palettes that felt “personally impactful and timeless,” Kantz noted, homing in on a cultural ache for the past.
“While the Trendsight Team was on the lookout for a multitude of trends, one that came to the forefront was nostalgia,” she said. “Consumers are really leaning toward colors that add a comforting, familiar feeling to their spaces.”
Nostalgia aside, all these hues, of course, influence spaces and people differently.
“Every color impacts us psychologically and physiologically in a different way,” said Mehnaz Khan, an interior designer and founder of Your Colorful Home Interiors in New York's Capital Region, which surrounds Albany. “So, to support the function of the room, we need a completely different color.”
And that’s where these 48 options come in.
Put frosty colors in a bedroom
When Khan saw the frosty palette, she immediately thought: bedrooms.
“Those frosted shades are really great for a bedroom to create a sleep-inducing environment,” she explained. “These colors — green, blue and violet — are lower-wavelength colors, so less energy.”
The cooler, tinted versions of these hues offer a “lower chromatic intensity,” Khan continued, making them a particularly good fit for our sleeping space.
“You want cool colors in the bedrooms,” she emphasized. The human body temperature decreases during sleep, and cooler spaces can promote deeper rest (that’s why some prefer to sleep in frigid environments), and these frosted shades and their lower wavelengths can help us along.
“Contrary to what we hear articles in shelter magazines saying, [a] warm and cozy bedroom is the complete opposite of what we really need to have a good sleep.”
Sunbaked or restorative, consider your colors carefully
So where might the palette’s more intense colors fit in?
What Sherwin-Williams calls its "restorative darks" might work well in thoughtful spaces, Khan said.
"If you're spending a long time in a space where there's a lack of light, absorption of light or it's too blacked out, it's emotionally suppressive," she said.
So, these restorative darks are well suited for “the study, a home library, where you want to zone out from the rest of the world,” Khan explained. “It’s about disconnecting from the outside.”
Powder rooms offer another good option for restorative darks, Kahn said. “The time spent in a powder bathroom is very short compared to any other room in the house. So that’s why you can just go crazy in a powder bathroom [design-wise], because the impact is always proportional to time.”
Also, a good powder room option: those sunbaked tones. Most of the colors in that section, Kahn pointed out, are in the orange, red, yellow and pink family.
These midrange colors have longer wavelengths on the light spectrum, and “longer wavelengths of color are more stimulating,” she noted. In addition to the powder room, that means they might work well in an eating area or as an accent in a kitchen or a child’s room, places where you’re active but you don’t spend all day.
Keep the neutrals on tap, or use them as a base
Kahn values color, she explained, but the lighter neutrals, like the ones Sherwin-Williams included in its "foundational neutrals" section, are essential.
“If color is noise,” she explained, “then white is no noise.”
Well-balanced interiors moderate their color just as a dietician would moderate a meal, Kahn suggested, an approach she prioritizes in her practice. “Just because … I’m always talking about colors and surround myself with colors doesn’t mean that I have a problem with white or black … I need that quiet moment also.”
In that sense, these neutrals are endlessly applicable.
“You could have a white kitchen, but then the island, the cabinets in the island could be painted something like a darker green,” Khan proposed. “You could have wallpaper in your living room, like a mural on one wall, but then the other walls could be quiet with the White Snow color.”
Neutrals also work well in transitional spaces, Khan said, offering a break between colorful rooms.
“As an example, in my own home … the library is a dark burgundy purple, and the dining room has reds and greens,” she explained. The foyer between the two rooms is “white. It’s a blank space with a lot of artwork.”
All told, for nearly all the colors in this forecast, it comes down to intentional and informed usage, Kahn reflected.
“So, I see pretty much all of the categories, all of the colors, being used in different parts of the home," she said.