Farrow and Ball paint
Over the years, I have decorated a lot of period properties, listed buildings and all manner of residences where clients have requested Farrow and Ball paints. Mainly, because I think Farrow and Ball are dominating the marketing race for traditional colours and the flatter, matter finishes on walls and woodwork.
However, Farrow and Ball are one of three leading brands of traditional paints for plaster, metal and woodwork, and times are a-changing.
For years I favoured Farrow and Ball above their 2 main competitors, Little Greene Paint Company and Paint and Paper Library. All three companies offer a similar heritage colour range and their paints all share a similar traditional flatter look that sets them apart from Dulux or Crown (modern) paints. But…
… please note that as of June 2010, I stopped specifying Farrow and Ball eggshell and emulsion paints as my first choice for traditional finishes on walls, ceilings, trim, kitchen units and furniture.
The whole Farrow and Ball oil based paint range has been discontinued and is now a hybrid water-borne formula. I’m not saying that F&B water-borne eggshell is rubbish, because, if applied correctly on the right surface, in the right situation, it can look good and should be durable… but at this time, F&B water-borne paint specifications fall short of what myself and many other top painters and joinery manufacturers have come to expect from our paint on hand-made kitchens and furniture.
I am not picking on F&B specifically for going eco, that is fine by me, but my beef is that F&B insist that their water-borne primer-undercoats and top coats enable us to get the same level of finish as their old oil paint. Sorry, but in practical terms, that just is not true.
I am yet to see any water-based eggshell that can match the aesthetics of a traditional oil-based eggshell finish on wood, so in that respect, F&B are in the same boat as the rest of the paint world, trying to get around the plasticy sheen, the lack of body and questionable sandability inherent in non oil based paint. Oil paint fills grain, it dries reliably under “normal” conditions, and you can sand each layer of oil paint to a hard base – it just works. Farrow and ball Estate eggshell is nowhere near that point yet, but they won’t admit it.
Maintaining standards is hard when paint works against you
If you want a high class finish you don’t want to be straight jacketed by lower quality paint. And Farrow and ball seem to be forcing users along a road to lesser quality.
If you want to maintain standards, somehow you have to find a solution to the inability of water-borne paints to build up layers and solidity in the same way as heavier bodied or harder oil paint systems. The best finishes in water-based eggshell are achieved either using oil-based primer coats (See Jack Pauhl US master painter on how to paint bare poplar / tulipwood.) or with a LOT of preparation. A tough oil primer like Zinsser Cover Stain gives skinny water-based finishes a better foundation than water-borne primer. Or, I can get a fabulous finish using just water-based products, but the process is far from effortless and requires a lot more than 3 or 4 layers of paint.
In my experience, after all that preparation, I wouldn’t expect any trouble painting over the best trade primers with any decent oil or water-based paint, but Farrow and BAll insist that you apply an extra coat of F&B primer over your lovely base – for no reason other than F&B won’t stand by their finish paint unless you do so. That’s not right or helpful.
You could say, just use Farrow and Ball primer-undercoat and forget the Zinssers and other high performance primers, but that just doesn’t wash in the real world. If you have to deal with problem surfaces (knots, flaking paint etc) you want a bombproof primer. Farrow and Ball don’t offer that. (Aluminium wood primer is reliable but olde worlde, and has been superceded by white sealers that sand super tough and smooth!) Or if your kitchen or fitted furniture comes pre-primed, no way are joinery shops going to reject industrial grade primers just to appease Farrow and Ball users.
Farrow and Ball don’t have a monopoly on traditional paint
Their marketing is amazing and you would be forgiven for thinking they are the only traditional team in town. Fans of traditional paint are (rightly) in love with the colours that Farrow and Ball have adopted as their own. Many customers start the conversation by saying they want F&B Clunch or F&B Hardwicke White, and assume they have to use Farrow and Ball paint to get that traditional colour and look. That is not so!
Obviously paint companies cannot sell paint labelled “Farrow and Ball Hardwicke White” but colourists have been mixing and matching paint to other materials and colours since Stone Age times. Any paint company worth its salt has specialist colour mixers or Magic Eye to analyse and match their paint to anything in existence.
I believe in selecting the best paint for the job and wouldn’t dream of compromising my material choice because a colour has been picked from a swatch from XYZ paint company. ie If you want “Hardwicke White” in a traditional low sheen eggshell finish, I will get you that exact colour and sheen mixed in the best paint I know of. That is currently (and has been for a long time), Little Greene. So, when Farrow and Ball fans ask me to hand-paint a kitchen I specify trade quality Little Greene paint mixed in their chosen colour. The colour reproduction is faithful, and I can certainly tell you the finished job is as good as it gets with Little Greene.
Marketing shouldn’t get in the way of a good specification! You can get the lovely look with farrow and Ball, but boy, do you have to jump through hoops, with extra coats and frankly, abysmal and aloof tech support when things go wrong, which happens a lot. I dont think that is an acceptable trade off especially when there is a better option.
Little Greene has been in business since the 1700′s, and their chemists are pretty clued up on what trade users expect from traditional paint. They have a stunning range of of their own authentic English Heritage colours, plus mid, light and dark versions of many favourites – plus supplementary colours.
Simply, the overall package from Little Greene gives you everything you are now getting from F&B – and then some. And as long as that continues, I am more than happy to support a company that may not have the profile and marketing clout of Farrow and Ball, but they certainly know their paint. (They also manufacture Fired Earth, Paint Library and Sandersons lines…)
One of our UK kitchen painting specialist friends, GS Decorating have written a superb overview of Farrow and Ball paint, explaining the good, the bad and the indifferent.
Traditional paint v Dulux and co. »
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