If you are just starting to figure out how to DIY your home painting projects, you should be wary of these five common mistakes when using Boysen Latex Colors.
Boysen Colorants are useful and economic products that are mixed with different topcoats to achieve pastel and medium colors. Latex Colors, in particular, are the colorants for water-based paints—namely Permacoat Latex, Healthy Home, and Wallguard. Colorants allow you to be versatile with your color choices without committing to pre-mixed colors.
However, due to either following wrong advice, or just jumping into a project without understanding the products, you may make these painting errors yourself when using Latex Colors.
Mistake # 1: Using Latex Colors as Topcoat
The first major no-no when using Latex Colors is using it as its own topcoat. IT IS NOT A TOPCOAT. You cannot treat Latex Colors as its own paint.
Yes, the brochures present vibrant hues when the Colorants are in its full tone. However, the full tones serve as guides for when you will be mixing it with white and other base colors to achieve specific tinted hues.
Latex Colors are strictly meant to be mixed with water-based paints. Using it as coating would be like using paints with very low opacity and adhesion. It won’t serve its purpose of coating your wall. If you even make it adhere to your wall (however you manage to do it), it would easily chip off.
Painting using Latex Colors would just be a waste. If you want deep and vibrant colors for Permacoat Latex, it is much more recommended to choose from the readily-available colors, or have them mixed from colors you pick from a fan deck in Mix & Match Stations.
Mistake # 2: Mixing with Other Paints
Let’s say you have leftover B-1405 Thalo Green you mixed with Permacoat Latex to paint your bedroom a minty green. Say you also want the same color for an exterior wall you’ll paint using Acrytex, would you be able to mix B-1405 Thalo Green on Acrytex? No!
Boysen Colorants are also available as Oil Tinting Colors, Automotive Lacquer Tinting Colors and Acrytex Tinting Colors. Each has a specific formulation that allows it to be mixed with their respective topcoats.
Don’t get the colorants and their topcoats mixed up. Chemical incompatibility will result in a variety of paint problems, most notably the paints having difficulty adhering to the intended surface. It is worth reiterating to be careful mixing products, as you don’t want to waste the colorant or the topcoat.
Mistake # 3: Using Toulidine Red and Hansa Yellow for Exteriors
It’s right there in brochures and the website, Toulidine Red and Hansa Yellow are for interior use only and should not be painted for exterior surfaces. These two specific colorants make nice warm tints, but are not formulated to resist external weathering.
You risk your already pastel tints to fade more quickly. For exteriors, remember to use Exterior Red and Exterior Yellow. It’s there in the name. If you put the respective hues side by side, there is a difference, but that difference matters from when you use the color for exterior surfaces.
Mistake # 4: Going Over the Recommended Ratio
The recommended colorant to paint ratio is 1:16 or 1/4 liter of colorant to every 1 liter of paint. Going over this ratio affects the sheen, color and adhesion quality of your paint, resulting in the color fading more easily.
Since Latex Colors come in 250-mL and 1-L containers, you can keep it simple by using one container on 4-L and 16-L paints respectively. It does get more complex when you are mixing more than one colorant to achieve complex hues. This is where using a measuring tool comes in. This advice also goes for tinting paints not in 1-L or 16-L containers.
Mistake # 5: Not Using the Colorant Mixing Tool
Well, this is more of a reminder than a warning for any potential painting error, but you should really try to look into the Boysen App’s Mix Your Colors feature. Available even without internet connection, the Boysen App readily presents hues you can achieve using colorants.
Pick the color you like the most and it will show you the specific base tones you need to mix to get the said color. You can also do it the other way around by experimenting with mixing base tones and seeing what the end result looks like. Because of the tinting options you have, you cannot simply rely on the color wheel method in getting complex hues. Explore the different combinations first before going ahead with mixing colorants.
Key Takeaways
You can make the most out of Latex Colors if properly used as intended. While you have plenty of color options for water-based acrylic paints, you can reliably paint your rooms a nice color through Boysen Colorants. Read our FAQs for more information.
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