10 Reasons Why I Hate the Pantone Color of the Year: Cloud Dancer
Pantone has crowned Cloud Dancer as the color of the year, and I’ve tried. I’ve sat with it. I’ve looked at it in different lights. I’ve read the poetic explanations.
And I still hate it.
Not in a dramatic way. In a deeply embodied, visceral way. The kind of dislike that comes from recognizing when something is being sold as soothing but feels more like erasure.
Here’s why.
1. It feels like enforced calm
Cloud Dancer isn’t peace. It’s compliance dressed up as serenity. A color that says, don’t move too much, don’t feel too loudly, don’t disrupt the room.
2. It reminds me of padded walls
There’s something unmistakably institutional about it. Less cloud, more quiet room. Less dance, more containment.
3. It pretends neutrality is healing
Neutral doesn’t mean safe. Sometimes it just means unexamined. Cloud Dancer asks us to soften everything without asking why things are sharp in the first place.
4. It drains the body out of the room
This is not a color that lives in the hips, the hands, or the pulse. It floats above the body, dissociated and distant, corpselike and lifeless.
5. It erases texture
Cloud Dancer flattens nuance. It doesn’t invite complexity, shadow, or contradiction. Everything becomes smooth, matte, and emotionally beige.
6. It feels like an aesthetic apology
As if saying, Sorry for having edges. Sorry for color. Sorry for wanting more. I’m not interested in apologizing for aliveness.
7. It doesn’t age well
This color already feels tired. Like a trend designed to disappear quietly without ever being remembered.
8. It avoids the question
What do we actually need right now? Grounding. Courage. Heat. Presence. Cloud Dancer sidesteps all of that by hovering above it, possibly even... judging?
9. It mistakes quiet for depth
There’s nothing wrong with softness. But softness without substance is just absence.
10. It makes me crave contrast
Deep stone. Rust. Smoke. Teal. Bone with history. Color that has lived. Color that has been touched, defiled, smeared, bloodied.
Cloud Dancer may be the color of the year, but it isn’t the energy of the year. It doesn’t reflect what I see in the world, in the energy of the collective, or in the work I’m drawn to create.
Cloud Dancer asks us to disappear gently.
I’m more interested in what wakes us up.
Color can be medicine. Adornment can shift chemistry, not just aesthetics. There’s a reason certain stones, hues, and textures spark joy, courage, or clarity the moment they touch the body.
If you’re drawn to color as nourishment rather than neutrality, you may want to explore Luminous Enchantment: Crystal Jewelry & the Power of Dopamine Dressing, where I share how vibrant gemstones and intentional adornment support presence, pleasure, and embodied confidence.
Explore our world of colorful crystal healing jewelry HERE <3
xo,
Kari
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