Ivory vs Cream: How to Tell Them Apart and Pick Yours

Ivory comes with three companions: Old Lace, Eggshell and Alabaster. All four are very light and nearly neutral, so each carries only a trace of color.

Ivory and Eggshell lean yellow. Old Lace leans toward orange. Alabaster has no clear hue at all, so it is the quietest of the four. Ivory is the lightest of the set, and Eggshell is the one with the most color in it.

Near a face, a nearly neutral color stays out of the way. It frames the skin instead of tinting it. That is why ivory reads as crisp on a collar or a blouse: the fabric looks clean and the person is still the first thing you see.

Cream has a larger family: Lemon Chiffon, Papaya Whip, Champagne and Bone. The first four are very light and muted. Bone is the exception, nearly neutral like the ivories.

Cream and Lemon Chiffon lean yellow. Papaya Whip, Champagne and Bone lean toward orange. Lemon Chiffon is the lightest of the group, and Bone the darkest.

Muted means the color has been softened, not erased. You notice a gentle warmth in it. Try it near your face before you buy a whole outfit in it.

They share more than people expect. Both are very light. Both sit in the yellow range. If you hunt for a big gap in depth or in hue, you won’t find one.

The gap is intensity, and it’s small. The two read as about equally vivid. Ivory is nearly neutral. Cream is muted, so it shows a little more of its hue.

Held apart, you may not see it. Side by side, ivory looks cleaner and cream looks softer.

On a face, the cleaner one leaves your own coloring in charge. The softer one adds a touch of warmth to whatever sits above it.

On a fabric, the same holds: ivory looks crisp, cream looks mellow. In my view, a code on a screen settles nothing here. Your face does.

Six sub-seasons take both: the three Springs, plus Soft, Warm and Deep Autumn. Their temperatures run from slightly warm to very warm, and none of them leans cool. Cream’s extra softness doesn’t pull away from any of them. Warm Autumn is a good example. Its palette holds a Cream, and ivory lands right on it.

Four take only ivory: Light Summer, Cool Summer, Soft Summer and Deep Winter. For the three Summers, ivory is in the palette, matched with Soft White for Light Summer and Cool Summer, and with Off-White for Soft Summer. Cream is only close, a neighbor of those same whites. The three Summers run from slightly cool to very cool, and Deep Winter is neutral to cool, so cream’s muted warmth sits a step away from their whites.

Deep Winter is the strictest case. Ivory is only close to its palette, near Pure White. Cream is on its avoid list, and Pure White, the closest color in the palette, is a stand-in, not a match.

True Winter and Bright Winter sit in between. For both, ivory and cream are neighbors of Pure White, the nearest palette color. True Winter is very cool and saturated. Bright Winter is neutral to cool and very bright.

Start with the test: put each one under your chin, bare-faced, by a window, one at a time, and follow the steps in color draping at home.

Then dress them. Ivory next to camel or gold looks polished. Cream next to chocolate or olive looks earthy. Navy, burgundy and black work with both, so they’re safe ground if you own one of each.

If your sub-season takes ivory only, put ivory at the neckline. Cream is only close for the three Summers, and it sits on the avoid list for Deep Winter.