The ultimate paint finish guide, and what rooms you should be using them in?

So you’ve spent hours (or if you’re anything like me, weeks) pouring over colour charts and your walls currently resemble a patchwork blanket of tester pot swatches - but you’ve finally chosen your perfect wall paint colour! The hard work is over… right?

We all do it - we get so excited about our colour choices that any thoughts about paint finishes completely slip to the back of our minds; until it’s time to order the paint! It’s fantastic to have such a wide range of options available to you, but it can also be overwhelming.

Where do you start? What is the difference between matt finish and eggshell finish? Does my kitchen paint have to be shiny? Is gloss paint for your walls or woodwork?

I’ve knocked up this super simple guide to talk you through the various paint finishes for your walls and your woodwork  in addition to my recommendations for which paint finish you should use depending on the room you’re decorating!

@visitnumber7 - Steamed Milk

In this guide we will cover: 

• The different paint finishes for your walls
• The different paint finishes for your woodwork. 
• Which paint finishes we would recommend by room. 
• The eco credentials of the paints.

Paint Finishes For Your Walls

First up let's talk through the various paint finishes available to you for your walls. You’ll have heard about Matt before and likely Silk but you also have options such as soft sheen (sometimes referred to mid sheen) acrylic eggshell and scrubbable matt finishes. 

 Vinyl Matt

This is a modern, flat matt paint finish for interior walls & ceilings. It is water based and smooth in appearance (not chalky!) with excellent opacity & coverage to hide small imperfections. Many people panic about the use of the word ‘Vinyl’ in its name. This doesn’t mean shine. It’s just that it has some additional polymers in there which help build its durability. Vinyl Matt ist a ‘dry wipeable’ paint finish.

We have vinyl matt finishes from all manufacturers on our website but to keep this blog a little shorter and simpler, I’m going to focus here on our main colour match vinyl matt finishes Leyland Trade Vinyl Matt and Johnstone’s Trade Covaplus Vinyl Matt. As I previously mentioned, Matt is a popular finish as it helps to hide imperfections on your walls, its dullness masks them well.

The Leyland and Johnstone’s vinyl matt’s also provide incredible opacity with no need to use a primer before applying these to your walls or a white coat of paint over dark before their application.

Finally these products can be tinted to over 19,000 different paint colours and are available for colour matching to any shade whilst being available in 1L, 2.5L, 5L and 10L size to match the needs of your project. Opt for a vinyl matt finish for your ceilings due to it hiding imperfections, in addition to any lower traffic rooms (higher traffic areas will need something you can clean better!).

@ellascottage__ ntb274 & @hayley_homeandfamily ntb281

Soft Sheen & Silk

So I’m lumping these two together as they carry a number of the same benefits, the difference being their sheen level. Soft Sheen was developed to deliver a halfway house between Vinyl Silk and Vinyl Matt. It dries to an attractive mid-sheen finish (some companies call their soft sheen variant mid-sheen!) which reflects a bit of light giving the appearance of a slightly polished surface.

Vinyl Silk on the other hand is the highest sheen levels available for painting your walls which is incredibly reflective of light. Soft Sheen and Silk finishes are beneficial first and foremost as they are a washable finish making it more durable than a standard matt finish.

In addition to being easy to clean, the light reflecting properties of these finishes mean that they can help a smaller room to feel larger and brighter.

The downside to this is that by bouncing light off the walls they do show imperfections a lot more so these possibly aren’t the paint finishes for you if you have older, lumpier walls! As with the vinyl matt, these products can be tinted to thousands of different colour options!

Durable Matt

So we’ve covered three paint finishes for walls and that's pretty much it in terms of sheen level options (with the exception of Eggshell but we’ll get to that one in a mo!) but these clever paint manufacturers have further developed some of these finishes. First up and quickly becoming the most popular paint finish on the market is the ‘Durable Matt’.

This product comes with many different names depending on which manufacturer has made it so I’ll list a few below so you know what to look out for!

• Hardwearing Matt
• Acrylic Matt
• Diamond Matt
• Clean Extreme Matt
• Perma White Matt
• Optiva Matt
• All Clean 
• Perfect Matt
• Cleanable Matt
• Chalky Matt
• Velvet Matt

As you can see, it's a bit of a minefield of products with so many on the market but the premise of them is all the same. They’re delivering the hugely popular flat matt finish but with the characteristic of being cleanable/scrubbable.

These hard wearing paint finishes are of a superior quality and the key benefit to look out for (all of those listed above have this!) is a ‘Class 1’ scrub rating which is an ISO standard which shows the paint can withstand cleaning to the highest abrasion resistance and cleanability standards. 

To keep it simple I’m once again just going to focus on Leyland and Johnstone’s products otherwise I could be here all day (and maybe I should do another blog just on the variety of scrubbable matt finishes as there are some amazing technologies in there from being fire rated to some of the flattest paint finishes around !).

In addition to their class 1 scrub rating, the paint film provides stain and moisture resisting properties which makes these paints the perfect choice for areas which are subject to more wear and tear or condensation.

They’re also both suitable not just for walls but for interior woodwork when appropriately primed and just like a vinyl matt finish they help to hide imperfections on the walls. 

@reynoldsresidence ntb241 & @ourhome_upnorth LG Clay Deep

Durable Eggshell

The final one I wanted to mention for wall finishes is a durable eggshell finish. This may throw some of you as eggshell is typically known as a woodwork/trim paint finish however with the development of waterbased trim technology, acrylic eggshell has been designed to deliver a tough and durable paint finish that is suitable for both your interior walls and woodwork. 

Sheen level wise, the durable eggshell usually has a 15-20% sheen so helps to bounce light around your room whilst also hiding some imperfections as it's not as high shine as your soft sheen and silk finishes.

It has its class 1 scrub rating just like the durable matt and provides resistance to mould and moisture too. It's a popular finish choice when painting paneling to provide a contrast to matt walls or great when you want your walls and woodwork to flush in the same colour and finish.

I haven’t listed out the various names for durable eggshell as they’re very similar to the names listed out above for durable matt!

@sammiesvictorianhome slaked lime, slaked lime mid & @debbie__ross ntb31

Should my colour choice influence which finish I go for?

Not particularly! However, darker colours and vibrant colours can be prone to visible scuffs or dust marks, so you might find it handy to go for one of our more durable finishes. This way you’ll have peace of mind in knowing that the walls can be washed down if needed.

Paint Finishes For Your Woodwork

So I’ve talked your ears off about paint for your walls so I’m mindful of not talking too long about woodwork paint finishes but I wanted to touch on them quickly. I come across people referencing satin but meaning soft sheen for walls or vice versa, talking about gloss like its a paint type rather than finish and more durable than a satin finish so I just want to quickly highlight the paint finishes available to you for your woodwork!

Gloss

First up is gloss, it's the finish name you’ll probably recognise most and usually will be around an 80% sheen. Gloss feels like it's becoming more of a traditional sheen level with more and more people seeking out something flatter and a little more modern. 

Satin

Satin is the middleway option between eggshell and gloss, usually at about a 40-45% sheen level. Seen as more of a modern finish than traditional gloss but offering a nice contrast to flat matt walls it's a really popular paint finish!

Eggshell

Covered above, the acrylic/durable eggshell finish is the lowest sheen finish of your traditional woodwork paints and increasingly popular for your woodwork due to it feeling modern and hiding imperfections. 

In terms of durability, they’re all incredibly durable products as long as you’ve carried out the appropriate prep work (is bare wood primed, have you used an undercoat etc!). What I would say in reference to these products is I would look out for water based products.

Due to legislation changes in 2010, the VOC content of paints had to change and this impacted traditional oil/solvent based glosses, satins and eggshells. Solvent based paints will yellow incredibly quickly (we’re talking weeks) in addition to the fact they’re harsher on the environment, smellier to work with, clean up with turps and white spirit and have a longer drying and recoat time of 16-24 hours. 

My telltale signs for spotting a water based woodwork product:

1. Its got water based in the name, or a term like ‘aqua’
2. It's got ‘fast drying’ in its name
3. It specifies that it can be cleaned with water
4. It highlights its drying time of approx 4 hours (rather than the 16 for solvent based!)
5. It claims to be low odour (solvent based products always have a stronger smell)
6. It has a ‘low VOC’ sticker/badge on the can.

To keep it simple here is a link to our water based woodwork selection which can all be colour matched if you don’t want a standard brilliant white colour. Remember, no one is more durable than the other when choosing your sheen finish, durability for these is all down to proper preparation and application!

One final point to mention on woodwork finishes is the development of products like the Zinsser AllCoat which is an interior and exterior ‘any surface’, self priming product that is waterbased and provides a Matt finish for your woodwork, another perk many people seek out! 

Which Paint Should I Use In Which Room?

So hopefully by now you’re feeling a little more knowledgeable and confident in paint finishes but I thought it would be useful as a quick guide to highlight which paint finishes I would recommend based on which room of your house you’re decorating.

This is specifically for the emulsions and not the woodwork paints, as these are all as durable as each other that's a sheen level preference rather than durability for its surroundings!

Living Room & Bedrooms

So in a living room or your bedroom I don’t feel like they’re rooms that you mark or risk dirtying the walls very frequently. They’re more of a chillout space usually than a high level energy room so I personally would opt for a standard vinyl matt in here which is dry wipeable.

If it's a darker room then you could opt for Soft Sheen to reflect light! The only caveat here is I have a toddler and more importantly a labrador so I actually opted for the hardwearing matt top to bottom in my home and as I scrubbed strawberry off the wall recently I was very grateful that I’d done that!

Hallways

One of the busiest rooms of your house! Hands down here it's worth investing in durable products over standard emulsions! Leaning on your wall as you pop on your shoes leaving some greasy hand marks, knocking rained on bags against the wall as you run in through the front door and spreading dirt, this room in your house pretty much goes through the worst.

Opt for a durable matt if you’re wanting to hide imperfections and prefer a flatter matt finish or the durable eggshell if you find your hallway a little dark and want some help in bouncing the light around!

Kitchens

As with hallways, these rooms can really benefit from a more durable paint finish. You may get away with a washable finish like the soft sheen however if you find yourself to be a bit of a messy cook, or have a lot of people gathering in your kitchen and the walls seem to constantly need a clean then go for the durable finishes in here and you won’t regret it!

Bathrooms

So I’m going to throw an absolute curveball here and mention a paint product that I haven’t talked about in depth. Bathrooms tend to be high humidity rooms and you will get water runs and marks on your walls from the condensation you experience (which often carries the shower gels/shampoos so leave glistening run marks on your walls!).

Perma White is a specialist product that has been designed for these types of environments. It contains an active biocide that helps to prevent the growth of mould and mildew caused by poor air circulation with high humidity in addition to being a class 1 scrub rated finish so you can clean and wipe away any watermarks.

It's tintable to any colour just like our other durable emulsions and comes in a Matt finish and a Satin finish (although the perma-white satin finish is actually more like an eggshell sheen than a satin!) and it's also suitable for use on interior woodwork which is great in a bathroom where you would commonly find panelling!

I would always shoot for this product here unless you find you don’t have air circulation issues then the standard durable matt and eggshells have some mould protection in them. I also love the perma-white in a conservatory due to the constant changes in the air in those rooms!

Are these paints low in VOC/ Environmentally Friendly?

So I’m just going to briefly touch on this area as this is more a blog about paint finishes than the makeup of these paints but it's an important topic for many and one that people still don’t know a lot about! 

All of the paints listed and mentioned above are water based paints. They all have a minimal or low VOC content (Minimal is 0-0.29% VOC content, Low is 0.3-7.99% VOC content) which means minimal pollutants are released into the air whilst they are applied and are drying making them more environmentally friendly in addition to being better for your home.

What I will add however is that emulsions (paint products used on your walls) are always going to be low VOC as they’re a water based product so try not to get too worried about seeking this out, it should be the case! More and more companies are using the ‘low VOC’ tag as a marketing boost to their product but you should find most of what is available out there is low VOC! 

As for your trim and woodwork products, you can still buy solvent based products as there is still a small demand for them in some scenarios. I personally would stick to water based as aside from being better for the environment and your home, they are also nicer to work with! I listed the key telltale signs of a water based product in the section above so scroll back to re-read those if you need them!

If you want to read more of the science behind VOC’s and your paint I’ve written this all up into a separate blog - Low VOC Paints.

As for other eco credentials of these paints (it's not all about the VOC’s!) there are others here. I don’t like to greenwash, this is a product which is manufactured using raw materials from the earth which are mined (all paint products contain titanium dioxide for example!) but the manufacturers are doing their bit to reduce their impact on the environment.

PPG for example recycle all water at their manufacturing plant and run that back through the plant during the manufacturing process. Solar power is used in addition to eco delivery transportation through supply partners. From a DCO perspective, we’re working hard on our sustainability.

All of our packaging is recyclable or made from recycled materials, our energy is all from renewable sources and we’re partnered with DPD who are leading the way in green delivery options.

There is always going to be more that can be done but it is one of our key business pillars to continuously improve and as a small business I’m really proud of the work we’re doing! 

So hopefully by now you’re feeling more like a paint expert and you’re armed with the right terminology for paint finishes whether you’re talking about your walls or your woodwork.

If you do have any further questions or concerns and you would like to triple check your choices, please do just get in touch! You can drop us an email, call, whatsapp, DM or live chat and you know us…we love to chat paint here at DCO! 

Helen X