Are Expensive Paints Worth the Extra Cost?
15 February 2022
Are expensive paints worth it?
A phrase we hear a lot in life is that "you get what you pay for" and this is especially true when it comes to paint, wallpaper and decorating materials. Most of the time paints are made to a price point. Cheaper paints are made using lower quality ingredients, more fillers, less pigments and less Titanium Dioxide, which is the ingredient in paints that give them covering power. Titanium Dioxide is expensive, fact. Cheaper paints will have less of this and therefore will not cover as well or last as long as a more expensive designer paint or trade paint.
For most people, painting and decorating, either done by themselves or a professional is not something they want to be doing all the time. Homes are busy places in constant use by the whole family including children and pets. Paints need to be high quality, durable, and give an excellent finish in 2 coats. I would always recommend using two coats of emulsion on your walls regardless of what paint you are using. Two coats will give a much better, longer lasting and durable finish then using just one coat. When I see any can of paint with "one coat" written on the front, alarm bells start ringing instantly. Plus any bits missed by the first coat will be finished off by the second coat.
We deal with a lot of customers who have brought cheap paints, who call for advice when those products don't live up to the customers expectations for a variety of reasons. Costing them in having to buy more, higher quality paints, and even more importantly, time. Decorators have to be called back and paid again to complete the job, or more time has to be taken off work or in the evenings to sort out problems cheaper paints have caused. In this case, and extra £20 - £30 for the paint in the first place becomes a bargain, after seeing some people £150 out of pocket!
In my houses over the years I have always used Little Greene Intelligent Matt. This paint looks superb, the colours are amazing and more importantly it lasts. Other brands like Farrow and Ball, Paint Library etc do their versions which I have used on other settings with great success. I know I can scrub my walls down after the dog has shook and the walls will look as go as the day I painted them 3 years ago! Its also a flat finish, so I don't have to have a high sheen on my walls to get decent wipe-ability/scrub-ability. Even better I know that I only have to re-decorate when I choose to change the colour.
Designer brands like Farrow and Ball, Little Greene, Fenwick & Tilbrook etc, take more care and time with the development of their colours. This makes designer paints brands colour pallets easier to work with. Rich pigments give designer paints more life, they react differently to different lights and change throughout the days and seasons. In store, designer brands will provide brush out boards, painted with the exact colour you will get, the colour cards use painted chips, rather than cheaper and less accurate printed colour charts. I have seen many customers disappointed when the printed colour chart looks a different colour to the paint the have brought and applied. Sample pots are also made in large batches and decanted into smaller pots to give the most accurate paint samples as possible.
The advantages to using designer paints go on and on. Customers often come back into store with photos of their painting, so pleased with the outcome saying they'll never go back to cheaper paints again. Designer paints allow you to choose paints and colour with confidence, giving a high quality, long lasting paint finish, with superior colour choice, for both the inside and outside of your home.
W McNeice
15/02/2022
