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Behr’s 2020 Color of the Year Is Such a Natural Choice (Literally)

Laura Schocker
Laura SchockerChief Content Officer
Laura Schocker is an editor, writer, and homebody with more than a decade of experience in lifestyle and digital journalism. Before Apartment Therapy Media, she worked as the digital director at Real Simple and the executive healthy living editor at The Huffington Post. Her…read more
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published Aug 15, 2019
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We’re just over halfway through 2019, and Behr paint is ready to forecast their color projections for 2020. The company announced their official color of the year (COTY) on Thursday. The winner: Back to Nature, a soft yellow-green.

Behr and their retail partner, The Home Depot, gathered a group of design editors and journalists, including Apartment Therapy, to Napa Valley to make the big reveal. “Green is nature’s favorite color,” Erika Woelfel, vice president of color and creative services at Behr, said at the event, which was held outside in the greenery of Calistoga, Calif. “It represents a little bit of a getaway for each one of us.”

Credit: Courtesy of Behr

The team landed on this particular shade, she explained, because of its restorative, meadow-inspired hue. It “signifies a feeling of awakening,” she says, that can hopefully extend into a sense of peace within our homes. The health benefits of spending time in nature are well documented, and the Behr team was looking to bring that sensibility indoors, as well, according to Woelfel. “It’s a life force color,” she said. “It feels very vital.”

Credit: Courtesy of Behr

She also said that green is a great backdrop for other colors—if we take a cue from nature, it’s an obvious neutral complement, for instance, to everything from bright, saturated blossoms, to the bright blue sky, to more subdued browns and grays. “It’s a color that plays well with other colors,” she said. Of course, it also fits well within Behr’s larger 2020 color palette, which was announced in June.

Thinking of incorporating a little “Back to Nature” into your home? Woelfel says it can work in just about any room or accent, including the living room, bedroom, and dining room. Check out our recent roundup of sage green (which is technically just a bit darker) rooms for some inspiration to get started.

Back to Nature is the second COTY announcement ahead of 2020 so far—in June, PPG announced that their choice was a rich blue called Chinese Porcelain. For the least two years, Behr also went with a blue shade—in 2019, their color was Blueprint.

What do you think of Back to Nature? Share your feedback in the comments.