Earthy tones: bathroom colour trends for 2025
As we approach 2025, interior design is experiencing a profound shift, moving beyond traditional colour palettes to embrace more nuanced, emotionally resonant shades. If there’s one part of the home that grasps this ethos, it must be the bathroom. Colour speaks with a powerful and emotive language. It’s a silent communicator of comfort, well-being and identity.
Neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that specific colour wavelengths can trigger hormonal responses, modulate stress levels, and create sensory experiences that extend miles beyond visual perception. As a space for your mind and body – for soothing, long showers and restorative routines – your bathroom colour is far more than a mere aesthetic choice. It’s a profound self-care tool, and you could be overlooking it.
The bathroom, once seen as a utilitarian environment, is transforming throughout interior design, architecturally and across social platforms. Attention is turning away from spas and luxury retreats to the home, with the rise of remote work and busy lifestyles. It’s perhaps an idea we’ve had in recent years: indulgence does not have to imply travel. An escape can be as far as the next room and, by creating the right atmosphere, just as rejuvenating. What are the colours we can rely to accompany bathroom furniture choices for next year’s most relaxing bathrooms?
Orange: the resurgence of warmth
One colour known for its cosy, calming qualities is orange. A mix of bright, cheerful yellow and passionate red, orange is a softer space between these two, bold shades. Working in harmony, the confidence of red and the optimism of yellow refuse to lose their influence. They strike a balance between stimulating energy and calming warmth’, creating a space for what we might call ‘quiet joy’ to exist.
Orange has been studied to increase oxygen supply to the brain, stimulating creativity and mental activity. It’s an overall mood booster, representing enthusiasm and hope. With its rich spectrum ranging from soft tangerine to deep terra cotta, orange offers designers and homeowners an unprecedented versatility. In bathroom design, this translates to spaces that don't just clean and refresh the body but also rejuvenate the spirit. The colour's inherent warmth makes even the smallest bathrooms feel more expansive and inviting.
Lick, Orange 04
Terracotta is emerging as a standout trend for next year, symbolising groundedness through its earthy connections. Its appeal lies in its remarkable multi-functionality. Unlike white, monochrome and clinical colour schemes of previous years, this rich, warm-toned hue brings depth, alongside a sense of organic connection to a bathroom. Designers are increasingly viewing terracotta as a design philosophy that heals.
There’s a magical transition that happens when you blend strong, earthy shades with gloss. Orange shades, including terra cotta, can extend to bathroom features beyond a lick of paint. Tiling is one of these. Intricate texturing and the subtle colour gradations of orange tiles mimic the complex patinas of traditional clay works whilst working practically in your bathroom space – they’re resistant to moisture, easy to clean, and provide your colour choice with a stunning glow.
Quorn Stone’s Farini Cinnamon Glazed Square Tile
Think Quorn Stone’s Farini collection of Cinnamon Glazed Square Tiles, rustic and homely, but unmistakably modern. Paired with oak bathroom basin units or latte bathroom vanities, neutral paints like cream or taupe, cinnamon and terracotta splash your bathroom with a bold identity, without sacrificing calmness.
Sustainability considerations drive terra cotta's popularity. It’s fitting that many contemporary terra cotta pigments are sourced from recycled materials or developed with low-carbon manufacturing. Aligning with the ecologically conscious, earthy orange appeals to those seeking design choices that reflect broader environmental commitments.
Sage green: softer dimensions
Another branch of colour trends transforming bathroom design in 2025 are delicate greens –hues that represents a perfect intersection of calmness, energy and the natural world. Unlike past interpretations of green, often flat or artificial, sage and lighter greens bring a multi-dimensional approach to interior spaces.
We’re already seeing a surge of these soft greens. Sage, moss, grass, pistachio – nuanced green hues are transforming bathrooms from bland, functional areas into holistic sanctuaries that speak to our deepest needs for connection, tranquillity, and natural harmony. A representation of growth and renewal, these colours are mixed with white and grey tones, suggesting wisdom and maturity.
Lick, Green 14
Fired Earth’s Ixworth Tile, Forest
Soft, ethereal shades of mint and sea green create spaces that feel expansive, bright, and infinitely refreshing. These greens play with light in remarkable ways, making even small bathrooms feel open and breathable. Mostly, they are soothing, minimising the many stressors of a busy life with their presence. It’s a similar idea to staring at the intricacies and shades of leaves, or strolling barefoot on the grass. Pale greens are deeply peaceful.
There’s something darker that we’re watching for 2025’s bathroom colour palette. Forest green, equally relaxing as softer shades but with a wilder intensity, awakens a primal spirit within us. Taking us back to the woodland, where we are within nature but imperceptible to it, this shade has a different way of comforting. In the bathroom, forest green’s rich, saturated character lends itself to layering. A matte forest green tile can create a soft, almost velvety feel, while a glossy finish introduces depth and reflection.
Interplay between different finishes allows you to create a bathroom that feels dynamic and multidimensional, tapping into the presence of green in the great outdoors, forests and the abysses of lakes and oceans. Experiment with contrast when implementing greens, such as gold or copper fixtures, wooden elements or crisp white ceramics.
Brown: balanced elegance
Leaning further into the practice of bathrooms being a space for wellness, let’s note that wellness doesn’t look the same for everybody. Designer Sara Bengur explains how some of her clients prefer their bathroom to feel just like ‘another room’, with ‘a rug, ottoman, decorative cabinets and antique lighting’, whereas others go for a ’neutral-toned spa look’. A colour that holds firm in both concepts is brown, evoking the warmth of earth and timeless elegance.
COAT, ‘Petticoat Lane’
Brown has too long been a neglected bathroom colour, drenched in judgement with a relation to gloom, murkiness and muddy puddles. But brown is far from dull – the opposite, in fact – it exists in every balanced, beautiful natural landscape and depth to our planet, creating an unmatched emotional experience.
Tree roots, soil, steaming coffee. Our coexistence with this palette makes it perfect for smaller spaces, adding a breadth to your bathroom that does wonders for opening, whilst maintaining depth. Brown shades balance drama and subtlety, and work as a rich backdrop for metallic accents, making ‘bright’ brighter. COAT’s ‘Petticoat Lane’, a rich red brown that beats any colour at being cosy, is nothing short of dreamy, and worth a coat in your bathroom.
With colours as emotional landscapes, bathrooms of 2025 will no longer be simple, functional spaces. We’re ready to move into the new year with artistry, and a fresh perspective on how we transform our spaces to be calming, homely and connect with our inner being. Here’s to the bathroom as a creative project, a personal retreat and self-care sanctuary; as more than a boxed necessity.
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