from colorpicker import * items = [ ("item 1", "xkcd:spruce"), ("item 2", "xkcd:dark mint green"), ("item 3", "xkcd:spearmint"), ("item 4", None), ] fig, ax = plt ...

You end up with this: As you can see Pandas completely ignores the rcParams assignment, and sets it's own colours. I have only included in this example the exact elements (box, whiskers, caps, medians ...