Meet Iconic Gray — a soft, light grey with a warm greige cast that earns its name by getting along with everything. It is the goes-anywhere neutral for a living room, an open-plan wall, a hallway that has to flatter whatever hangs on it, calm enough to disappear and warm enough never to feel cold. In a ceramic matte the flat surface keeps it from going blue or flat-looking, so the grey stays soft and dimensional from morning through lamplight.

One Hour Ceramic is Wise Owl's luxury interior wall paint — a 100% acrylic matte built on 3M ceramic microsphere technology. Ordinary matte paints get their flatness from crushed mineral particles with coarse surfaces that hold onto stains; the ceramic microspheres here are hard and uniformly round, so the finish stays velvety flat while fingerprints, soil, grease and many other stains wash off with mild soap and water without harming the paint film. It resists scrubbing and burnishing, self-levels to reduce brush drag, and is self-priming on drywall, cured plaster and masonry. Coverage runs 350 to 400 sq ft per gallon, it dries to the touch in about an hour, and it is extremely low-VOC at 50 g/l and low odor, with soap-and-water clean-up.