What is Flat Paint?

There are different types of paint available in the market, but do you know what is flat paint? It is a paint that dries and gives a minimum reflective touch. It can also be referred as matte finish paint and contains both advantages and disadvantages. Read further to know more about flat paint.

There are several alternatives to this type of paint. This includes eggshell, satin, semi-gloss, and gloss paints. All these paints come in different level of reflectivity where the gloss paint is the most reflective paint available in the market. One of the major advantages to this type of paint is its adherence level, where it readily adheres and can be applied to rough surfaces easily. However, there is a disadvantage that the paint usually attracts dirt and stains over the time. Also, flat paint is very difficult to clean as compared to glossier paints. This is the reason why many people choose flat paint for applying on ceilings or places where it attracts less stains.

Flat paint must not be used in high traffic areas like kitchens where it gets grease, dirt, and dust, making the area awful in appearance. It is good for the places where one need to hide the roughness of the surface. A glossy paint on the other hand will highly every minor pit and crack, turning the wall look far worse than ever. Flat paints do not reflect light from every angle and tend to hide the roughness. Thus, they are used especially to texture the area for making the appearance improved.

Apart from used in houses, matte paint or flat paint can sometimes be used for car painting. However, it is important to understand the difference between a true paint job and the use of a primer. Like other paint primers, auto primer is a type of flat paint. Since primer’s role is to hide the rough surface and provide another layer of paint over it, auto primer is used. A primer basically holds the paint on wall and protects it from shedding away from the area. A primer’s role is to hold the paint very tightly and giving a fantastic finish on the area. On the other hand, glossy paints do not function well as primers since the next layer of paint will shed easily.

The paint jobs found on cars are actually the specialized finish paints and not just primers. There are stores to mix paints as per the choices of customers. If the customer is not sure of which paint will be best, can seek recommendations from professionals to get the desired finished look. Staff at the paint store also recommends the best finishes as per colors. So if at all you are interested for paint job of your home, you know where to go and what to select. If the wall is very fine then you have an option of choosing glossy paint to texture the wall.