Sea Salt (SW 6204): Undertones, Coordinating Colors & Cross-Brand Matches

Sea Salt (SW 6204) is a light green-gray at LRV 63.3 with a neutral undertone — and it is the most famous chameleon in the Sherwin-Williams deck, a color that reads green in one room, gray in another, and blue-green by lamplight. That shape-shifting is the whole appeal in a spa-like bathroom or a calm bedroom, and the whole problem anywhere you need a color to hold still. This guide breaks down what Sea Salt actually is, how it behaves by window direction, how it splits from its two sisters Rainwashed and Comfort Gray, and its closest match in every brand you can buy. Every hex, LRV, and undertone here comes straight from our color database.

Full color data and cross-brand matches: Sea Salt SW 6204.

The Numbers

Sherwin-Williams lists Sea Salt SW 6204 in its green family. Our digital classification may place this muted shade near gray; that label does not establish how the paint will look in your room. See the manufacturer color reference (reviewed 2026-09-20). Our catalog lightness values are estimates unless a manufacturer value is explicitly identified.

The Chameleon Effect: Why Sea Salt Never Looks the Same Twice

Compare a physical Sea Salt sample beside your flooring and furnishings in daylight and under your usual lamps. The digital swatch cannot predict a fixed green or blue shift from window direction alone. Keep the paint finish consistent when comparing samples.

Sea Salt vs. Rainwashed (and Comfort Gray)

These three Sherwin-Williams greens get cross-shopped constantly because they are close relatives, so here is the split. Sea Salt(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 6204, LRV 63.3, neutral) is the lightest and the most balanced — the safe middle. Rainwashed(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 6211, LRV 59.2, neutral) is a step deeper and leans a touch more blue-green; it reads a little more obviously colored and a little less gray. If you want the coastal blue-green to be clearer, pick Rainwashed; if you want it to whisper and stay flexible, pick Sea Salt. The third sibling, Comfort Gray(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 6205, LRV 53.6, warm golden undertone), is the darkest and the only warm one of the three — it grounds toward a green-gray sage rather than staying cool, which makes it the right call when Sea Salt reads too pale or too cool for the room.

Sea Salt in Every Brand: The Closest Cross-Brand Matches

Sea Salt is a Sherwin-Williams color, but the same green-gray exists under a different name in almost every line — matched by how close it actually looks, not by name. The single closest is White Rapids(Dutch Boy) from Dutch Boy, which shares Sea Salt's exact hex, so it is the nearest of all and rates nearly identical. In Benjamin Moore, Gray Cashmere(Benjamin Moore) (2138-60) is the nearly identical equivalent. In Behr it is Silver Setting(Behr), also nearly identical, and PPG Bay of Fundy, Valspar Three Wishes, and Hirshfield's Pale Loden are all close enough to swap in. The one to watch is Farrow & Ball Skylight — it is a close cousin and rates very similar, but not a direct swap, so treat it as a cousin, not a substitute.

The match people ask about most is Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue(Benjamin Moore) (HC-144, LRV 60.4) — the famous blue-green that gets pitched as the Sea Salt of Benjamin Moore. They are close cousins, not twins. Palladian Blue reads a shade bluer and a hair cooler than Sea Salt, and its own closest Sherwin-Williams match is Waterscape (SW 6470), not Sea Salt. If you love Sea Salt's green side, the honest Benjamin Moore equivalent is Gray Cashmere; if you want the same idea pushed further toward blue, that is when Palladian Blue is the better call.

Coordinating Colors: Trim, Companions, and What to Pair

Try a soft white such as Alabaster alongside a brighter white before choosing trim. Neither is automatically right or wrong: compare the samples together against your fixed finishes. Comfort Gray is another color to sample if you want a deeper companion. Alabaster(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 7008, LRV 82.2) is a soft white to compare in a physical sample. For a tonal, layered scheme, Silver Strand(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 7057, LRV 59, warm golden) is Sea Salt's closest cabinet-and-trim companion — a hair warmer and slightly deeper, so it grounds a room built on Sea Salt walls. And when you want more color weight in the same green-gray range, Comfort Gray(Sherwin-Williams) (SW 6205, LRV 53.6) steps the green-gray up for a vanity, island, or accent wall. Sea Salt's most common home is the bathroom — see our best bathroom paint colors guide for where it lands against the field, and if you are deciding between it and a true sage, our best sage green paint colors post covers the greener end of the family.

Testing Sea Salt in Your Own Room

Because Sea Salt moves so much with the light, testing it where it will live matters more than it does for a stable neutral. Try the provided room photograph in the room visualizer to explore the green-gray on the demo walls before testing a physical sample. To check exactly how far Sea Salt sits from Rainwashed, Palladian Blue, or any match above, put them side by side in the color comparison tool. The full Sherwin-Williams range lives on the Sherwin-Williams color chart, and you can browse the neighbors in our green paint colors and gray paint colors families — Sea Salt sits right on the line between them.