Colour of the year 2026 - Cloud Dancer

Croda Industrial Specialties is proud to introduce the 2026 colour of the year trend, inspired by Pantone’s Cloud Dancer. Moving away from the rich, intense tones that defined 2025, this year signals a shift towards calm, clarity and collaboration. Cloud Dancer represents a new design direction that reflects a broader cultural need for balance and thoughtful creativity.

A soft, lofty white Cloud Dancer captures a sense of serenity in an increasingly complex world. It invites quiet reflection, allowing space for ideas to develop and creativity to expand. This understated shade offers both versatility and impact, whether used alone to create a light, airy aesthetic or paired with complementary pastel tones to introduce subtle contrast and depth.

A foundation for creativity and innovation

Cloud Dancer is more than just a colour trend. It reflects an evolving mindset within design and manufacturing, where simplicity and adaptability are becoming key. Its neutral nature allows it to

 harmonise effortlessly across applications, making it highly relevant for decorative coatings and industrial surfaces. At the same time, it provides a clean foundation for showcasing colour performance, texture and finish.

This trend aligns with the increasing importance of environments that promote well-being and focus. In spaces shaped by Cloud Dancer, there is a sense of openness and calm that supports both individual reflection and collaborative work.

Supporting the coatings industry

Croda Industrial Specialties continues to support coatings formulators with innovative ingredients that help bring trends like Cloud Dancer to life. With a broad portfolio of speciality additives, the focus remains on delivering both performance and sustainability.

As a near white shade, Cloud Dancer formulations rely heavily on titanium dioxide for brightness and opacity. To ensure this key inorganic pigment is fully optimised in water-based systems, dispersants such as Zephrym PD 3315 provide excellent stability and colour development, helping formulators achieve consistent, high-quality results.

The Zephrym range of dispersants offers advanced solutions for colour development and stability. These proprietary polymers are designed to prevent particle agglomeration, ensuring consistent performance even in demanding conditions. They help formulators achieve strong colour intensity and high quality coatings while working efficiently at low treat rates.

Alongside this, Croda’s ECO range provides 100 per cent bio based surfactants and polyethylene glycols derived from biomass sources. These materials enable manufacturers to reduce carbon footprint without compromising performance. The combination of renewable raw materials and efficient manufacturing processes supports the growing need for more sustainable formulations.

Performance with sustainability in mind

Croda’s speciality surfactant portfolio delivers a range of formulation benefits that are particularly relevant to modern coatings development. These include the ability to reduce or eliminate VOCs by replacing solvent systems with water-based alternatives, while maintaining final film performance. Improvements in gloss, colour development and drying times can also be achieved, alongside enhanced durability and resistance to moisture.

In addition, these technologies support formulators in optimising resin content for greater cost efficiency and in improving the environmental profile of finished products through the use of low-hazard or biodegradable ingredients.

Looking ahead

As the industry looks towards 2026, Cloud Dancer sets the tone for a more considered approach to colour, design and formulation. It reflects a desire for calm, clarity and adaptability while creating opportunities for innovation in decorative coatings.

Croda Industrial Specialties remains committed to helping customers respond to these trends with solutions that combine performance, sustainability and creativity. By working together, we can create coatings that not only meet technical requirements but also resonate with the changing needs of the world around us.