Benjamin Moore Cloud White Field notes

The notes below stay with placement, materials, and the sequence that avoided a redo of the redo. Benjamin Moore Cloud White is one of my go-to white paint colors. I share why A strong choice is it, how it compares to other whites, and everything else you need to know about this polished paint color!

Choosing the right white paint color isn't always easy but Benjamin Moore Cloud White is one to put on your short list of possibilities! It's the color that I painted both our family room and our kitchen in our previous home and it worked so beautifully in both spaces!

Today I'm sharing the reasons that Cloud White is one of the best white paint colors and showing you how it compares to other similar whites. Let's get to it… (post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my full disclosure statement {here})

Why I Love It: Cloud White (OC-130)

There are two camps of white paint colors – cool (blue toned) and warm (yellow toned). When I was looking for a white paint color for our family room, I wanted a warm (but not too yellowy) white and was deciding between Cloud White, Simply White, and White Dove. The truth is that anything would have been better than this red that I was painting over – yikes!

I chose Benjamin Moore Cloud White and found that it's exactly what I had been looking for! It's a warm but not too yellow white that helped give our family room a settled feel.

It's also bright but never stark and has none of the green undertones The household has found with some other whites. It worked beautifully with our wood media console, brass art frames, and everything else in our space:

Sources:Chandelier (satin bronze) |  White tasseled pillow cover  |  Blue linen pillow cover  |  Green & blue block print pillow cover  |  Faux fiddle leaf fig tree  |  Rug  |  Pair of floor poufs  |  Art prints (details in {this post}  |  Acrylic coffee table (similar) |  Coffee table tray (28″ square)

We also chose Cloud White for the walls when we did our kitchen (look at our kitchen redo “before” and “after”). It worked so well with our tile, countertops, and cabinets:

Sources: Lantern pendants over island  |  Rattan counter stools in Fog  |  Pulls on island drawers (12″)

Benjamin Moore describes Cloud White as “lightweight and luminous, this subtle, sophisticated shade of soft white is reminiscent of vapor clouds on a clear day.” That's definitely a bit more creative of a description than mine but I do agree that it's a sophisticated soft white – almost like the perfect soft but not too yellow lightbulb!

A Reliable Trim Color to Go With Cloud White Walls

Whenever I paint the walls of a room white, my choice for trim color is simple – I use the same exact color as the walls but in a glossier sheen. When you compare Cloud White in flat or matte to Cloud White in satin or semigloss they actually look like different whites since the same white in a glossier finish looks lighter and brighter.

Using the same white paint color for your walls as your trim gives you just the right amount of contrast and of course you're guaranteed that they'll work beautifully together. In both our family room and our kitchen I used flat on the walls and satin on the trim – I prefer flat on the walls to a higher sheen paint because it's so much easier to touch up when needed.

Are you planning on doing the painting yourself? Look at my post on how to paint a room for the step by step of getting the job done!

Cloud White vs. Other Similar White Paint Colors

If you're thinking about using Cloud White to paint a room in your home, you're probably considering other similar whites too. Two similar whites that are often “in the running” for those looking at Cloud White are Benjamin Moore White Dove and Simply White.

It can be really hard to tell the difference between these three whites from a tiny color swatch so I ordered large paint color samples from Samplize {here} to show you how the three colors compare.

If you're not familiar with Samplize, they sell 12″ x 12″ squares with the actual paint (not a computer generated version like with your typical color swatches) rolled on them. They have an adhesive backing that allows you to stick them on your wall and get a better idea of what the color would look like in your space:

The adhesive doesn't harm the walls and it's not so sticky that you can't remove the paint square and reposition it somewhere else in your room which IS something you want to do because whites can look different depending on the part of your room they're in and the light that they receive.

Click to order these colors on Samplize here:

Benjamin Moore Cloud White

Benjamin Moore Simply White

Benjamin Moore White Dove

I'll go into detail about how these three paint colors compare to one another but you'll already be able to tell a bit on your own by looking at samples of Simply White and White Dove on my Cloud White kitchen walls:

And on my family room walls:

Looking at these pics of the three whites I'm comparing, you may be thinking that they actually don't look “white” but are more off white. That's because you're looking at them on the stark white background of your computer screen. Cloud White, White Dove, & Simply White look like whites when they're on their own but if you place them next to stark white, the creaminess of these colors comes out.

Here's my breakdown of how Cloud White compares to each of these two other whites:

Simply White vs. Cloud White

Simply White (OC-117) is one of the preferred white paint colors. It has a touch of warmth but is still light and bright. The household has used it throughout our current home, including in our guest room:

Sources: Queen beadboard bed (weathered white) | Round mirror | Pinch pleat curtains in Snow White | Curtain rods | Duvet & shams no longer available |  Block print pillow covers (similar) | White tassel pillow | Nightstands | White lamps (similar) | Cane bench

The biggest difference between Simply White and Cloud White is that Simply White (which has an LRV of 91.7) is a brighter white than Cloud White (which has an LRV of 87.35). The higher the LRV, the brighter the color is.

Another difference is that while both whites are warm, yellow hued whites, Simply White is closer on the color wheel to the green hues than Cloud White. Because of this, there are some cases when Simply White can unexpectedly throw some green undertones, especially if it's in a room where there are lots of trees and other greenery outside the window reflecting off of your walls.

This was the case in our family room – I initially planned to paint the space Simply White but after painting the first wall I could see some greenish hues that I wasn't expecting. Likely it's because our family room has several windows with lots of green trees and bushes outside of them that were reflecting against our painted walls and bringing out the green in Simply White. In the rooms The household has painted Simply White in the house in NC, I see NO green undertones. It goes to show how important it is to test whites in the room you're planning to use them in because the same white can look very different from one room to another.

Cloud White vs. White Dove

Cloud White and White Dove (OC-17) are very similar whites. When comparing these whites above, I actually thought it was hard to tell much of a difference at all between the two which is why I layered the circle of Cloud White onto White Dove at the bottom. Doing that, it became easier to see that White Dove has more gray in it than Cloud White and is just slightly less bright (White Dove has an LRV of 85.38) than Cloud White (which has an LRV of 87.35).

These two colors are super close in hue and while they have close to the same amount of yellow in their formula, Cloud White can look just a touch more yellow than White Dove because it doesn't have that added gray to subdue it. 

Before we renovated our kitchen, our walls were painted White Dove and I was really happy with the color – it worked well with the countertops and flooring that we had at the time. I switched to Cloud White after our kitchen redo simply because that white blended better with our new cabinetry, floors, and countertops. It's always important to compare the white paints you're considering to fixed elements in the room you're painting whether that be countertops, furniture, cabinetry, or anything else that's going to be staying put in the space.

That wraps up my review and comparisons of Cloud White with other whites! Remember that testing them out in your own space is key because the same white paint color will look different from home to home and even from room to room! If you want to buy Samplize samples of these three whites you can find the Cloud White sample {here}, the White Dove sample {here}, and the Simply White sample {here}.

If you want to see details and pics of even more white paint colors, look at my post on the best white paint colors that has photos of each paint color in real spaces.

You might also want to look at my post on Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace – it's another popular white paint color

Also, if you haven't seen it already you might want to take a peek at our kitchen redo before and after with tons of pics of Cloud White in our renovated space.

Thanks as always for stopping by!