Help with paint Choosing colour

How to use pink paint

A pink is chosen by its undertone: muted with brown or grey, it is a warm neutral that replaces a beige in a sitting room; pushed towards red, it is a deep colour for a dining room; light and powdery, it is a light for a bedroom. What makes it sugary is not the pink but the pure white beside it: give it a grey-green, a brown, a soft black or a deeper pink, and it grows up. Eight ways, with the Mylands pinks.

Page updated September 2026 · by the Mylands France colour team

Sitting room with powdery pink-brown matt walls, mid grey-green woodwork, white linen sofa, walnut coffee table, green plant, morning light — Soho Pink No.266 on the walls, Serpentine No.192 on the woodwork: pink as a neutral

Understanding

Pink is a red with light in it

A pink is a red — an earth, an oxide, a carmine — let down with white, and often a touch of yellow, grey or violet. That touch decides everything. A pink with a hint of violet is fresh and a little sweet; a pink with a hint of brown or ochre is a warm neutral that lives with oak and linen; a grey pink is almost a beige. The association of pink with the feminine is a twentieth-century invention; eighteenth-century drawing rooms were pink, and the houses of London and Paris have stayed so.

Mylands grinds its pinks from iron oxides and earths, which draws them naturally towards brown-pink rather than sweets. Each shade's page lists the whites, neutrals and accents that go with it; the guide Pinks for a bedroom compares the softest.

Eight ways

Eight ways to wear pink

1. Deep pink, for impact

A pink pulled towards brown-red on all four walls of a dining room or a vestibule, woodwork in a lighter pink: the evening room, warm by candlelight, never sugary.

Walls · Theatre Land No.282 Woodwork · Threadneedle No.262

2. Pink and black

A powder pink on the walls, a softened black on the skirting, doors or cornice: the black sharpens the pink and takes away any sweetness. In a tall hall, a corridor, a bathroom.

Walls · Threadneedle No.262 Woodwork · Blackout No.41

3. Pink and green

The pairing of opposites, muted: a pink on the walls, a grey-green or deep green on the woodwork and a piece of furniture. The green calms the pink, the pink warms the green. See Choosing complementary colours.

Walls · Palmerston Pink No.243 Woodwork · Serpentine No.192 Furniture · Brompton Road No.205

4. Powder pink, like a light

The lightest pink on walls and ceiling, rosy white on the woodwork: the room looks lit from within, like a complexion. For a bedroom, a north-facing sitting room, an open-plan kitchen.

Walls & ceiling · Kensington Rose No.22 Woodwork · Osterley No.25

5. Pinks as a family

Three pinks of one family: the light on the walls, the mid on the woodwork, the deep on a door or the ceiling. Drenching in pink, with no white: the most enveloping hall or bedroom there is.

Walls · Threadneedle No.262 Woodwork · Soho Pink No.266 Door · Rothschild Street No.296

6. A touch of pink

In a room already decided: a pink ceiling over green walls, a pink band below the cornice, the inside of a cupboard, a stool. Pink comes in without the walls being repainted.

Ceiling · Soho Pink No.266 Walls · Hurlingham No.181

7. Neutral pink

A brown-pink or grey-pink on every wall of a sitting room, in place of a beige: warmer than a greige, livelier than an off-white, and it holds with oak, leather and linen.

Walls · Soho Pink No.266 Woodwork · Holland Park No.5

8. Pink and brown

A powder pink and a deep brown — chocolate, brown-black — on the doors and a piece of furniture: pink's most grown-up pairing, the one of the 1930s and the hotels of Paris.

Walls · Threadneedle No.262 Woodwork & furniture · London Brown No.287

Dining room with deep pink walls pulling towards brown-red, light pink woodwork, oak table, bentwood chairs, candles — Theatre Land No.282 and Threadneedle No.262: deep pink, for impact

The Mylands pinks

Nine pinks, from the lightest to the deepest

Pink	Undertone	For	The white that goes with it
Kensington Rose No.22	Rosy white	Ceilings, walls of north-facing rooms, woodwork under a deeper pink	Holland Park No.5
Palmerston Pink No.243	Powdery, barely violet	Bedrooms, with a green	Osterley No.25
Floris No.27	Fresh rosy	Bathrooms, children's rooms	Holbein Chamber No.7
Threadneedle No.262	Warm pink-beige	The rosy neutral of sitting rooms and halls	Whitehall No.9
Soho Pink No.266	Greyed brown-pink	Sitting rooms, in place of a beige	Holland Park No.5
Pale Lilac No.246	Pink-mauve	Bedrooms, quiet studies	Osterley No.25
Bloomsbury No.267	Old pink, brown	Furniture, woodwork, one deep wall	Whitehall No.9
Theatre Land No.282	Deep pink-red	Dining rooms, vestibules	Threadneedle No.262
Rothschild Street No.296	Dark brown-pink	Doors, ceilings, the woodwork of pink drenches	Threadneedle No.262

The vivid pinks — French Rose, Shocking Pink, Magenta — are in the FTT collection: for an accent, a door, a child's piece of furniture.

To avoid

What makes a pink sugary

Pure white beside it. It brings out the sugar; a rosy, warm or grey white brings out the depth.
A violet-tinged pink in a south-facing room. It turns to sweets in full sun; take a brown-pink.
Pink and sky blue. The catalogue nursery; prefer pink and green, pink and brown, pink and black.
One coat. A light pink in one coat shows the base and looks washed out; two coats, always.
Judging it on the colour card. Four pink walls are pinker than the chip: test on a board, two days, morning and evening.

Hall with powder-pink matt walls, skirting, doors and cornice in a softened black eggshell, checkerboard floor, brass console — Pink and black: Threadneedle No.262 sharpened by Blackout No.41

Frequently asked questions

Your questions, our answers

Does pink suit a sitting room?

Yes, in a brown-pink or grey-pink — Soho Pink, Threadneedle — which behave like warm neutrals. With grey-green or brown woodwork, a linen sofa and wood, nobody will say "pink sitting room"; they will say "warm sitting room".

Which pink for a north-facing room?

A warm pink, with a hint of yellow or brown — Threadneedle, Kensington Rose — which makes up for the cool light. A violet-tinged pink will go grey. See How light affects colour.

And for a child's room?

A powder pink on the walls and a green or a yellow on a piece of furniture, rather than pink everywhere: the child grows, the furniture gets repainted. See Upcycling children's bedroom furniture.

Which ceiling with pink walls?

The same pink (drenching), a lighter pink of the family, or a rosy white — never a pure white, which looks blue above pink. Kensington Rose No.22 is the ceiling for almost all our pinks.

Pink and red, is that possible?

Yes, within one family: a powder pink on the walls and a brown-red — Huguenot, Indian Lake — on a door or a fireplace. It is a gradation, not a contrast; it holds because the pigment is shared.