Choosing the best color for your bathroom interior can transform it from a simple functional space into a relaxing sanctuary. The right hues can make a small bathroom feel bigger, add warmth to a cold space, or create a spa-like atmosphere. Whether you prefer timeless neutrals, serene pastels, or bold, dramatic shades, selecting colors that reflect your style while harmonizing with your bathroom’s features is key to achieving a cohesive and inviting look.
When it comes to matching colors, however, it’s all about balance, and you do a little more than picking your favorite shade. Light walls paired with strong accents can be depth adding, or monochromatic soft schemes evoke elegance. Accessories such as towels and rugs in matching colors will add some vibrancy to your home. In this guide, we’ll cover some of the best colors for the bathroom and show you how to combine them easily, ensuring that your bathroom is stylish as well as functional.
Best Color for Bathroom
1) Light Grey
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Grey is the most popular choice for a bathroom finish today. This is because it creates a lot of opportunities to include minimalist designs. Most sleek finishes with neat bathtubs and sinks have a grey finish.
Grey is plain enough to allow other aspects of design, like lighting or large windows, to thrive without much competition.
Grey is one of the easy colors to match with gold and other strong accents. This is because grey creates a beautiful background that creates a strong foundation for other colors to stand on.
2) Light Green
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Green accents have a fresh feel and are some of the best bathroom paint colors. Light green has a natural feel, especially when coupled with natural light. Calming light green interiors go with a wood accent to lend a sense of nature.
3) Powder Blue
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Powder blue is one of the best color ideas for bathroom walls because it works almost in a similar way as grey does, but with a little bit of color. Powder blue works well for your powder room because it represents one of the main components of such a room; water.
Powder blue brings a lot of coherence with the blue skies outdoors, extending the feeling of being on a beach inside your house.
4) Gold Accents
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Gold is bold, making it hard to work with as a main color. If you want to use gold as the main color, you have to commit to it fully. Otherwise, the best way to use gold is to use it in detail. Gold works well on handles, railings, edges, lamp holders, and other details.
Gold is easy to detail because it works with almost any color. It is very hard to go wrong with gold, which should give you confidence in your work.
5) Bright White
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The most common bathroom paint color is white, and the most common go-to material is white tiles. While white requires a lot of cleaning and maintenance, it makes the bathroom look exquisite.
White serves as an empty canvas for those who appreciate minimalist designs. With a white wall color, you can use accents of all kinds.
White is the best paint color for bathrooms for people who are neat freaks. While a color like grey can hide mold at its initial stages, white will expose any tiny changes on the walls.
6) Seafoam Green
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Seafoam green is a unique color to work with in bathrooms because it opens up space for a vintage aesthetic. Seafoam green is relaxing and brings a feeling that is not monotonous. Most of the bathrooms you get in look similar, and a great way to break the monotony is to have yours in a different color, such as seafoam green.
7) Powdery Pink
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Powdery pink is elegant in the form of paint, especially when used on a bathroom wall. Powdery pink works well with gold accents, making any room a combination of those two decorous and perfect for refreshing baths.
Powdery pink can work perfectly with other colors, such as emerald green, with a similar attractive pull.
8) Black
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Black is not the first thing that comes to mind when considering a bathroom. However, with modern interior design, pulling off black is easier and more embraced. You can pull off black in two ways. The first way is by detailing using black.
If you have a largely white bathroom, detailing the switches, handles, edges, and more can be exciting when using black. Black creates a dramatic effect in a room, giving the eye a visual play.
9) Red Bathroom
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Red is a modish pick for anyone looking to turn their bathroom into an exciting part of the house. Red is a bold color for a bathroom, but not too bold to make it work. When matched with the right shade of other colors, anyone can love red in a bathroom.
Some colors to mix with red include grey, green, white, and more. Red works nicely as a detailing color but can also do well as the main wall color.
10) Soft Taupe
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If you’re opting for something laid back, taupe is a refined earth color. A strong color that can add to the richness of the bathroom without sensory overload of colors. Soft pink or red accents work well over a soft taupe background.
Taupe is a nice match next to off-white and helps to create a spa like background with an interesting light play backdrop for plants.
11) Dark Blue
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Dark blue not only works well as an accent wall color but as a main color as well. Dark blue is bold but does not create a dark space as one might imagine. A dark blue color comes with many opportunities to work with other colors. From metal accents like gold, silver, or copper to yellow lights, dark blue is a great way to make other colors pop.
12) Emerald Green
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Emerald green creates an inviting space in the bathroom with a rich feeling. Its impetuous energy supports dark and bright colors to thrive and appear trendy while simultaneously creating a toasty feel. It can be paired as successfully with white as with gold or silver accents.
The colors classically pair with silver and gold accents and work perfectly with emerald green. Mirrors, with emerald green tucked in is also a breathtaking yet relaxing mood.
13) Sky Blue
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Sky blue is great for a windowless bathroom to compensate for the outdoor views. Furthermore, if used properly, sky blue makes any small space feel relaxing. Sky blue is great for a bathroom color because it gives water a light blue shade, which we mostly associate with clean and relaxing water bodies.
14) Jade
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Jade is a powerful yet calm color that works well for the bathroom. Jade works well with light wood accents to give a feel of what a calm outdoors has.
Jade is not only strong but works well for darker spaces. However, not amount the very popular bathroom paint colors, jade is never a miss when used on a bathroom wall.
15) Navy Blue
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Navy blue is a neat color for the primary bathroom of offices, studios, schools, and more. Navy Blue works for a home setting too. There is something official about mixing navy blue with white, which gives off a neat finish.
Navy blue matches most colors with warm undertones. While it works perfectly with white, it can also be used with other colors, such as light yellow.
Tips on How to Match Bathroom Colors
a) Metallic Accents
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Metallic accents work with almost all colors. Furthermore, metal accents work for both large and small bathrooms. Working with metal accents is as easy as incorporating them into handles and edges. This way, you can add excitement to a well-finished interior design look.
Metallic accents can work with paints too. Some paints give metallic finishes, which can work well in detailing and drawing patterns.
b) Primary Colors
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Primary colors work well with most other colors because, in most cases, other colors are a shade of primary colors. Working with primary colors never goes wrong because they are where all the other colors originate.
c) Black and White
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Other colors, like white and black, may not fall into the primary colors category. However, the colors can affect other colors by either darkening or lightening. White and black can also work as standalone colors on walls.
Different shades of grey come as a mix of white and black. Bright whites and black can be mixed together, creating varieties of grey such as ash grey, charcoal grey, etc. This combination is the most popular and will be used more and more in interior design.
d) Complimentary Colors
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Sometimes, having a single color in an interior design project can be boring. However, if you have to mix colors, there are some rules you must follow. One of those rules is the use of complementary colors. These are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.
Since complementary colors have different wavelengths, they tend to make each other stand out, which works for designers.
e) Analogous Colors
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Unlike complementary colors, analogous colors border each other on the color wheel. Being right next to each other, one would think that the colors do not complement each other. However, any two analogous colors will blend nicely into each other.
f) Add Mirrors
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Mirrors are one of the main features of a bathroom. While mirrors serve the primary purpose of creating a reflection for the user, they can serve other purposes. For one, mirrors make any small space, like a small powder room, look larger than it is. A mirror reflects light and the colors on the wall for design purposes, making any room more visually exciting than a room without mirrors.
g) Frames
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A frame allows you to do anything you want within it. You can have framed artwork with different colors to make your wall exciting. While finding artwork in most bathrooms is uncommon, you can give it a shot and will not regret it.
Frames can complement other bathroom features, such as mirrors. Framing mirrors makes them bold and exciting. You can also frame other bathroom accessories, such as wall lamps.
h) Earth Colors
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Using earth colors is a great place to start when developing bathroom color ideas. Earth colors are easy to work with and embrace other colors by giving them a foundation.
Earth colors work well as analogous colors, as they do not compete but create a space for each other to look good.
i) Accent Walls
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An accent wall allows you to play around with colors however you want while keeping the general mood of the house. Accent walls work
j) Pastel Colors
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Pastel colors are satisfying to look at and have a calming effect. No matter how you mix these colors they are soft so they work together. If you’re not into shiny surfaces, pastel colors can create a chalky effect.
k) Retro Aesthetic
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A retro aesthetic is a great way to break from the modern interior design in all interiors today. Going vintage brings a fresh vibe and is satisfying for anyone who is into the 70s lifestyle.
Having a retro aesthetic makes it possible to recycle old items for use in the bathroom. Some items have to be passed down creatively through interior design.
l) Matte Finish
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A matte finish is a great way to use colors, especially vivid colors like black. If done well, matte finishes are sleek. For instance, matching matte grey with a vivid color like pastel green has a pleasant effect.
m) Victorian Aesthetic*
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Victorian houses are still here, with most finishes emulating the architectural era. However, this happens mostly on the exterior. Changing the norm with Victorian shapes and colors will make your bathroom the most exciting in the neighborhood.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bathroom Colors
1) What color makes a bathroom look larger?
Bright colors make bathrooms look less claustrophobic. Cool tones are a no-go for creating the illusion of space unless you use additions like mirrors, fewer doors, and large windows.
2) What color is best for bathroom ceiling?
The best bathroom ceiling is white to reflect the maximum light in the bathroom. Other paint colors for bathrooms, like pink or cream, can work for the ceiling as long as it is a bright shade. When working with ceiling-installed bathroom exhaust fans, matching the colors on both the fan and the ceiling is better.
White paint has simple maintenance; all one needs is a fresh coat to make the ceiling more vibrant.
3) Should a bathroom be light or dark in color?
Whether a bathroom is light or dark depends on the owner’s personal preference. Some people like themed bathrooms with darker accents. Furthermore, mixing up the dark and light shades in the bathroom can produce interesting results.
4) What colors brighten a small bathroom?
White is the first go-to paint color for brightening small bathrooms and making them feel more spacious. Other colors that can work for such spaces include blush pink, off-white, baby blue, and bright colors.
5) Which color is best for bathroom tiles?
White tiles are great for reflecting light into the bathroom. Although there are a variety of color schemes and shapes available, predominantly white tiles will work best for your bathroom.
Final Thoughts
A bathroom is a place where you visit more than once every day. Furthermore, the bathroom is where you refresh physically, mentally, and spiritually. Therefore, you have to give it a finish that matches the solemnity of the room. The best way to do this is to choose a color that matches your energy, and there are endless options to help you get the right color combination.
