Dulux Paint samples

[pinnerite]

Dulux 250ml paint sample tins are intended for what?

I bought 2.5 Litres of a selected colour (Dove Grey) and used it all on a cupboard carved out of the corner of what was a bathroom.

My wife decided she wanted our decorator who happened to be painting our kitchen to "touch it up". I warned her not to but once she gets the bit between her teeth she will not let up.

I did not want to buy another 2.5 litres so settled on a sample pot.

Huge mistake. While the colour mix is probably correct, the luminance is not. I think it is about 25% deeper.

The decorator made a good job of overcoming the difference. He took it down to shelf level so it looks tidy but overall it is worse than when he started.

Dulux say samples should not be used for touching up as the colours can be different. So what good are samples?

[Martin Brown]

The old paint has faded with age. This is quite normal.

The sample pots are a pretty good representation of what the paint will look like when *NEW* and freshly painted. They are usually only available in at most one or two of the many surface finishes.

Paint which has been on an object for some time and exposed to sunlight will end up a different paler and often bluer colour to virgin paint even it it was identical in the can. That is the crux your problem. It is a tough life being a red or yellow pigment in a paint film.

You can use samples for touching up if you match carefully by eye and only use it on small areas with irregular edges or stipled. It also dries to a different colour as the solvent evaporates so you have to match it when dry. You will be misled by the wet colour.

Paint a test strip first.

[alan_m]

You tend to get that even if you used the same tin of paint for the touch-up. The area of the touch-up will have a thicker layer of paint or the touch up will by brush rather than roller

[charles]

or the original will have faded

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

One might also say what good are the same colour paint after a couple of years also. I don't care now but when I could there were differences. I'm not sure what the samples are for, a rule of thumb test, I guess. Its all down to batch tolerances apparently and even military paints suffer from it. Brian

[Brian]

We try to keep a bit of paint used in each room in case we need to touch up anywhere. We label it so we know which room etc (we tend to go for similar colours but Senior Management decides one fancy name for cream looks better sometimes). Even so, when we?ve needed to touch up somewhere, especially in a room which gets a lot of sunlight, the difference can be seen.

[Andrew]

I looked into this when I needed some touch up paint in small quantities and the 250ml match pots were not available in ?satin finish which I needed.