Taro
What Taro Actually Looks Like
Taro is a dark, rich plum that sits squarely between purple and eggplant. It is saturated enough to read almost black in dim rooms or on north-facing walls, while brighter light pulls out its true purple-plum character. It is assertive from the moment you open the can.
Taro Undertones
The color carries cool violet undertones with a faint red-purple warmth underneath. Depending on your light source, the red can come forward and give the color a wine-like quality, or the blue-violet can dominate and push it toward a deeper, almost bruised purple. Warm incandescent bulbs tend to bring out the red. Cool daylight bulbs lean into the blue-violet.
Where Taro Works Best
Because its light reflectance is very low, Taro absorbs a lot of light. That makes it a strong choice for spaces where drama is the goal, not brightness. An accent wall, a powder room, a library, or a dining room where you want an intimate, enveloping feel are natural fits. It is not a practical choice for a small windowless room you need to feel airy, and it will make a low-ceiling space feel noticeably lower.
Where to put Taro
A dining room is one of the best places to use Taro. The low light reflectance creates exactly the kind of close, candlelit atmosphere that makes a dinner feel like an event. Pair it with warm-toned wood furniture and brass fixtures to keep it from feeling cold.
A powder room is small by definition, so the color's light-absorbing quality is a feature rather than a flaw here. Taro wraps the space in color without needing to cover much square footage, and a large mirror with warm lighting keeps the room from feeling like a cave.
On all four walls of a bedroom, Taro produces a cocoon-like quality that many people find genuinely restful. Keep bedding and textiles in softer, lighter tones so the room has somewhere for your eye to land and rest.
Dark, saturated colors have a long history in studies and libraries for a reason. Taro on the walls concentrates attention and makes a room feel purposeful. Layer in warm wood shelving and good task lighting.
What to Pair With Taro
No Benjamin Moore coordinating colors are assigned to Taro in our current database. In general, it pairs well with warm off-whites, soft creamy neutrals, aged brass or gold hardware, and muted dusty pinks or earthy terracottas. Deep charcoal and black grounds work too, leaning the scheme toward a more dramatic, tonal look.
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Colors that clash with Taro
Taro's red-violet undertones can look jarring next to cool blue-grays in an adjacent space. The contrast between the warm purple and the cool gray reads as unresolved rather than intentional.
A very bright, blue-toned white trim next to Taro can make the purple feel harsher and more cold than it actually is, and it flattens the depth of the color.
In a room with little natural light and cool-temperature bulbs, Taro can shift toward a flat, heavy near-black that loses most of its purple character entirely.
Common questions
Taro has an LRV of 9, which is very low. On a scale where 0 is pure black and 100 is pure white, 9 sits near the dark end. In practical terms it means the color absorbs the great majority of light in the room, so you need to plan your artificial lighting carefully to keep the space functional.
An eggshell finish is a good default for walls. It gives you just enough sheen to make the color feel rich without being reflective enough to show every imperfection. In a high-humidity space like a bathroom, a satin finish is more practical and still reads beautifully with a dark color like this.
Deep saturated colors in this value range almost always require two full coats for even coverage, and tinting your primer to a dark base first will help. Going over a white or light wall without a tinted primer often leads to an uneven, slightly streaky result even after two coats.
Benjamin Moore offers Taro 1386 in exterior formulas, so it is technically available for outdoor use. Deep, saturated colors on exteriors can fade more noticeably over time than lighter colors, so factor in repainting frequency and use a high-quality exterior formula with UV protection.