Why Does My White Paint Look Yellow? How To Fix It

Have you ever spent hours (or even days) carefully selecting the perfect white paint for your walls, only to watch it dry into a shade that looks more like a pale banana than the crisp, clean white you envisioned? You’re not alone. Choosing the right white paint is one of the most frustrating challenges in home design, but it doesn’t have to be. Let’s break down why this happens and how you can avoid it in the future.

The Problem: My New White Paint Looks Yellow (or Pink or Blue or Grey or Purple). Help!

White paint rarely looks “pure white” once it’s on your walls. This is because most white paints have subtle undertones that can shift depending on the lighting in your space. Here are the main culprits:

• Hue Family or “Undertones”: White paint isn’t just white. It belongs to a hue family, a specific place on the color wheel. This means it will have “undertones” of yellow, pink, blue, purple, green, etc. These undertones become more noticeable under certain lighting conditions.
• Chroma: Chroma is a measurement of how pure or muted a color is. When it comes to white paint, the higher the chroma value, the more likely you’ll see the hue family or “undertones” show up to the party. 
• Lightness or LRV: You might have selected a white that is too dark or one that feels overly bright and sterile.
• Lighting: Natural and artificial light can dramatically alter how white paint appears. For example, warm, soft white light bulbs (bulbs in the 2700 K range) can bring out yellow tones, making your white walls look creamy or even dingy. Daylight bulbs (bulbs 4000 K and higher) can make white walls look purple or gray. Grab our free Light Bulb Cheat Sheet to learn exactly which bulbs you should be looking for when you’re evaluating paint color.
• Sheen: The finish of your paint (matte, eggshell, satin, etc.) can also affect how light reflects off the surface, further changing the appearance of the color.

Ready to say goodbye to yellowing whites and hello to the perfect paint color? Enroll in Color By The Numbers™ today and start choosing paint colors like a pro.

The Solution: How to Choose the Right White Paint

The key to avoiding this headache is understanding the science behind color and light. Here’s how you can get it right:

1. Test in Your Space: Always test paint samples on your walls and observe them at different times of the day. What looks bright and white in the morning might look completely different under evening lighting.
2. Understand LRV (Light Reflectance Value): LRV measures how much light a color reflects. Whites with a high LRV (closer to 100) will appear brighter and cleaner, while those with a lower LRV may look duller or muddier.
3. Decode the “Undertones” (i.e., Learn how to identify the correct hue family): Every single color on the color wheel (including neutrals, like blacks, grays, and whites) belongs to a specific color family. Learning to identify this hue family (or “undertone”) is a huge step in selecting the right paint color. For example, Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace has a hue angle of 113.586°, which means it belongs to the Yellow-Green Family, making it a cooler color than BM Swiss Coffee, a warm white in the Yellow Family (hue angle=101.311°). Believe it or not, there’s actually a simple, objective way to collect that comparison data. We teach you exactly how to do it in our virtual color course, Color By The Numbers™.

How Color By The Numbers™ Can Help

If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. In Module 6: Unlocking the Secret to Choosing White Paint of our Color By The Numbers™ course, we teach you how to:

• Identify the undertones in any white paint.
• Use spectral data to predict how a color will look in your space.
• Choose the perfect white for your lighting conditions.

Plus, you’ll get access to our exclusive spectral data breakdowns of the 20 most popular white paints from Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore. No more guessing—just confidence in your color choices.

Prefer a Quick-Start Solution? Grab Our Ultimate Guide to White Paint Colors: 18 of Our Favorites & How to Use Them!

Not ready to dive into the full science of color? We get it — sometimes you just need the answers. Our Ultimate Guide to White Paint Colors: 18 of Our Favorites & How to Use Them takes the guesswork out of choosing whites by giving you:

• Handpicked, large-format swatches of the best white paints (no more squinting at tiny chips!).
• Undertones decoded so you can see exactly which whites lean warm (creamy), cool (crisp), or true neutral.
• Lighting tips for each palette so you know how they’ll look in your space.

It’s like having a pro narrow down 50 shades of “white” to the 10 actually worth considering.

Stop the Guesswork – Enroll in Color By The Numbers™Today!

Ready to say goodbye to yellowing whites and hello to the perfect paint color? Enroll in Color By The Numbers™ today and start choosing paint colors like a pro. With our easy-to-follow lessons and practical tools, you’ll never second-guess your paint choices again.

By understanding the science behind color and light, you can finally achieve the crisp, clean white walls you’ve always wanted. Don’t let undertones and lighting ruin your design vision—take control with Color By The Numbers™!