DECORATIVE and INDUSTRIAL PAINTS

Decorative paints brighten our everyday lives by covering walls and surfaces in unique and surprising colours. These colours create a mood in the environment and portray a sense of style and taste. Paints are designed with a number of properties in mind like hiding power, gloss, durability and colour. A paint is generally made of pigments, bases, solvents and fillers, each of which contribute to the colour and appearance of a paint.

Consumers no longer want their walls to be painted in a dull, standard colour as more and more consumers want to purchase something that is unique to them and accurately portrays their personal style. This has created a challenge for paint producers in making paints that are unique, colourful and retain their colour in the long term.

A number of challenges arise in the Paint industry when creating and producing new paints. The paints need to be produced to the same exact colour that they customer has requested. Paint colour swatches and tickets need to accurately resemble the colour that the consumers receive in the paint tin. Consumers want to purchase the colour they want and receive a precise colour match. Tinting the correct shade can be difficult at POS and In-Plant and using precise colour technology can reduce tinting time and improve colour accuracy.

At the end of the day, Colour is the most important attribute of paint and needs to be accurately and objectively controlled to avoid customer complaints and rejections and ensure that a paint company is able to produce paint that is reliable in terms of colour and appearance.

Objective colour measurement can assist the Decorative Paint industry in the following ways:

• Measure the colour of paint during the production process for consistency and quality control purposes.
• Identify adulteration or contamination of pigments, colourants, bases and solvents.
• Create tinting formulations for in-plant or POS tinting
• Ensure the hiding power and durability of paint
• Ensure consumers get the paint they see in colour swatches and cards
• Reduce tinting time in-plant