Sesame
What Sesame Actually Looks Like
Sesame sits in a quiet zone between cream and greige. It reads warm and off-white at a glance, but with almost no real color saturation, so it never shouts beige. The overall effect is muted and calm, closer to a grayed cream than a true yellow or tan. Because the chroma is so low, your eye reads it as a sophisticated neutral rather than a color with a name.
Sesame Undertones
The undertones here are subtle to the point of being elusive. Sesame lives in the yellow hue family, but you would not know it from across the room. In south-facing rooms with generous natural light, a gentle warmth comes through and the color reads its truest self. In north or east-facing rooms, that warmth retreats and the color goes noticeably flat and muted, almost grayish. Western afternoon light is the most dramatic situation: as the sun drops, Sesame can pick up a faint red-pink cast that is easy to miss at midday. On exterior walls, it behaves differently than inside, reading warmer and more creamy than you would expect from looking at it indoors.
Where Sesame Works Best
Sesame works across a wide range of applications. It handles single rooms, bathrooms, open-concept layouts, and whole-home wraps without overwhelming any one space. It is versatile on walls but requires some thought in trim and cabinet pairings. On cabinets paired with other off-whites on the walls, it gets fussy fast. Your safest moves are clean white walls to give Sesame walls contrast, or pairing it with something noticeably deeper so the neutral quality of the color has room to breathe. On exteriors it shifts toward a warmer, creamier read, which can work beautifully on traditional or cottage-style homes.
Where to put Sesame
Sesame is well suited to living rooms because its low chroma keeps walls from competing with furnishings or artwork. In a south-facing room it reads warm and welcoming through the day. In a north-facing living room, lean into the muted quality by adding warm-toned wood floors or amber textiles to counterbalance any grayness.
Bathrooms with good artificial lighting show Sesame well. In a windowless bath, choose bulbs with a warm color temperature so the color does not tip gray. In a bathroom with south or west windows, expect a pleasant creamy warmth that makes the space feel unhurried.
Whole-home or open-plan use is one of Sesame's strengths. Because it reads as a near-neutral, it flows from room to room without creating abrupt color changes as exposures shift. Just expect some rooms to look cooler and grayer than others depending on where the light comes from.
Outdoor light pulls more warmth out of Sesame than you see indoors. On a facade it reads closer to a creamy warm neutral than the muted greige tone you see on an interior sample card. That shift works in its favor on traditional, farmhouse, or cottage exteriors where a slightly warm field color reads classic rather than stark.
What to Pair With Sesame
Because Sesame carries almost no chroma, it pairs cleanly with a range of whites and deeper neutrals. There are no Benjamin Moore coordinating colors listed in the database for this color, but the research points to a few useful directions. A crisp, clean white on trim gives Sesame walls definition without fighting the color. A softer warm white on trim creates a tone-on-tone effect that reads quietly cohesive. Avoid pairing it with other off-whites on cabinetry unless you have tested them side by side in your actual light, since the undertone difference can look like a mistake rather than a choice.
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Colors that clash with Sesame
Sesame is fussy next to other off-whites. Two similar neutrals side by side tend to make both look like they were chosen carelessly, and one will almost always look dirty or yellow against the other.
Cool or blue-based grays pull against Sesame's warm undertone in south or west light, creating a visual tension that feels off rather than complementary.
In low north light with daylight-spectrum or cool white bulbs, Sesame can look flat, tired, and closer to gray than you expect from the chip.
Common questions
Sesame carries the Benjamin Moore color code 381. Its precise LRV is 63.05, and the hex and RGB values render in the spec block on this page.
It depends heavily on your exposure. In south-facing rooms it reads warm and gently creamy. In north or east-facing rooms the warmth pulls back and the color goes noticeably grayer and more muted. Western afternoon light can introduce a faint pink-red cast by evening.
Yes. Its low chroma makes it one of those neutrals that transitions across different rooms and exposures without looking wildly inconsistent. Just be aware that you will see real variation between your sunniest and darkest rooms.
Outdoor light brings out noticeably more warmth and creaminess than you see on an interior wall. If you are sampling indoors, know that the exterior result will read warmer, which is usually a pleasant surprise on traditional or cottage-style homes.
Sherwin-Williams Shoji White (SW 7042) is a reasonable cross-brand comparison. It sits at a similar depth and reads as a low-chroma warm neutral, though it carries its own subtle undertone variation and you should sample both in your actual space before committing.