Dulux Names a Soft Grey-Green Called Soulful Sage Its Colour of the Year for 2027
Dulux has chosen Soulful Sage, a calm grey-green drawn from its annual ColourFutures research, as its 2027 Colour of the Year, positioning it as a flexible base for interiors built around quiet and clarity rather than a single bold statement.
Every autumn, Dulux's parent company AkzoNobel closes out a year of trend research with a single paint chip meant to sum up where interiors are heading, and this year's answer, announced on September 8, is Soulful Sage. Described as a soft, grey-toned green, the shade caps a research process called ColourFutures, which tracks shifts in social mood and design behaviour across the year and translates them into a practical colour direction for professionals and homeowners alike.
The reasoning behind the pick leans more psychological than decorative. Dulux has framed Soulful Sage as a direct response to a noisy, uncertain moment, explaining that the colour is "taking us straight back to nature, it's a calm, uplifting shade." Rather than chasing a trend for its own sake, the brand's research pointed toward a broader public appetite for lighter, more considered domestic environments, the kind of rooms designed to lower the temperature of daily life rather than announce a design statement.
What makes Soulful Sage notable as a working colour, rather than just a mood board reference, is its flexibility. Dulux describes it as a foundation shade that can flex warmer, cooler, more neutral or more energetic depending on the rest of a scheme, making it as suited to a hushed reading nook as to a kitchen meant to feel more alive. That adaptability is presented as the point: a base colour intended to support how a room actually functions and feels to the people using it, rather than dictating a fixed aesthetic on its own.
The choice also reads clearly against Dulux's own recent history. Last year's pick was Rhythm of Blues, a trio of blue tones, while Pantone's own 2026 colour of the year, Cloud Dancer, was a soft greyish white, part of a broader industry drift toward quieter, less saturated palettes after several years of maximalist colour statements. Soulful Sage continues that trajectory while pulling it further into green, aligning with a longer running interest in nature-adjacent tones across interior design.
For a colour call that shapes paint counters, mood boards and product ranges well before most consumers register the shift, Soulful Sage's real test will be how designers put it to work over the next year, whether as a whole-room wash or a single confident wall. Full details on the announcement are at Dezeen, and the brand's own colour range is at dulux.co.uk.
