Deep colored paint is a popular choice for accent walls and specific rooms for those who wish to create a beautiful, dramatic look in their home. Although DIY painting saves you money while you’re having fun, things often get terribly confusing for inexperienced painters with this paint.
If you are a beginner to this medium, you likely have many questions about the process and what products you need to achieve the rich color you’ve been imagining.
So, how do you use deep base paint? Deep base paint is not intended to be used alone and needs to be mixed with a tint before application. We recommend having a professional mix it for you to ensure the correct ratios are used to create the best quality paint.
For cost-efficiency reasons, many stores carry base paint which is supposed to be tinted with your color of choice. But getting the base paint wrong results in an entirely different shade from what you might have expected.
Base paint comes with a white pigment which determines how light or dark the color will be. Deep base paint contains little of it. Therefore, when tinted, the pigment stays dominant, yielding a bold shade.
Don’t worry if nothing is making sense right now. Continue reading this post as we dish out everything there is to know about deep base paint and how to use it.
Bases In Paints
Most people will confuse base paint with a base coat and even use the terms interchangeably. However, a base in paint is not a base coat and neither is it a primer.
There are even cases of newbie painters buying paint base and using it on their walls only to see a translucent layer of paint staring back at them. Despite bearing the name “paint,” base paint isn’t exactly paint. That is, not until some conditions are fulfilled.
So then, what is a “base” in paint? A base in paint is the foundational medium for the creation of colored paint. In other words, it is an incomplete paint that needs to be tinted with a colorant to become paint.
Base paint normally contains a white pigment derived from titanium dioxide. This white pigment determines the opacity of the paint as well as the shade of the final color after the base paint has been tinted.
There are five different paint bases; white light, medium, deep, and clear base paints. What differentiates one base paint from another is the amount of white pigment in it.
Base paints are becoming popular quickly, probably because it is cheaper for the manufacturers. They avoid unnecessary costs and resources associated with producing, shipping, and storing ready-made paint in every color under the sun.
What Is Deep Base Paint?
Deep base paint is one of the various categories of base paints. The other paint bases are white base paint, light/pastel paint base, medium paint, and clear base paint.
Some manufacturers use a number labeling system from 1 to 4 instead. In this case, 1 would be white, 2 medium, and deep base paint would be a 3, which makes 4 ultra-deep or clear base paint.
So, what makes deep base paint the way it is? Let’s look at its major characteristics.
1. Amount Of White Pigment
Each base paint has some amount of white pigment except for clear base paint, which has none. The more white pigment the paint base has, the lighter the color shade it produces and vice versa.
Deep base paint is the paint base with the least titanium dioxide or white pigment than the rest. Therefore, it accepts the most colorant, resulting in deeper, darker tones.
White base paint has the highest amount of titanium dioxide, followed by light base paint. Consequently, they produce light and pastel colors, respectively.
Medium base paint is in between and produces neutral shades that are neither dark nor light. Deep base paint has the least amount of titanium dioxide, hence the darkest colors.
2. Coverage
Variations in color intensity is not the only thing influenced by titanium dioxide in paint. This white pigment also determines the opacity of the paints because it acts as a light blocker.
So, the less white pigment a base paint has, the less coverage the resulting paint gives. This is to say that deep base paint produces the richest colors but has the least coverage.
Here’s an example. If you painted a white wall with the different base paints, but without any tint added, the underlying color will show through the deep base paint coat more than it will in the others.
For this reason, you may not want to use deep base paint as paint without first tinting it, even on a white wall. However, you can get away with an untinted white base paint on a light wall because it has the most white pigment, hence the best coverage.
What Is Deep Base Paint Used For?
Deep base paint is used to create darker bold colors with accuracy by combining them with tint. Something that would be difficult, if not impossible, to nail at home by mixing two different paints.
Making paint colors lighter is easier because you just need to add white paint to the colored paint. But the reverse (deepening paint color) is not that simple.
Deep base paint eliminates such guesswork from painters saving them from catastrophic results and wasting or even ruining the paint.
Now that you have a good idea of what deep base paint is used for, the next step is learning how to use it. Deep base paint needs a slightly different approach from the more common white or light base paints you might be more familiar with.
1. Tinting
The first step is to choose a color and have your deep base paint tinted by a professional. As mentioned earlier, this paint is not ready to use as-is.
Many people make the mistake of buying it thinking that it is white paint only to be disappointed. Deep base paint must be tinted regardless of the color you want to achieve.
Most stores that sell this paint already have the machinery for mixing in the colorants. These machines are pre-set to dispense precise amounts of pigment for every gallon of deep base paint.
If you attempt to do it on your own, you might end up putting too much or too little of the tint, negatively affecting the drying time, resilience, sheen, and other properties of the paints. For accuracy, always have it done in-store.
Can you use deep base paint without tint? You could use deep base paint without tint, but it would be impractical if not pointless. Deep base paint without tint does not even dry white. If at all, you’ll end up with a translucent coat that beats the purpose of painting.
If you paint with untinted deep base paint inadvertently, still there’s no damage done. You can paint over it with tinted deep base paint.
2. Priming
Once you have the paint, you want to choose a primer for it. Deep base paint needs a good quality half tinted primer as its base coat. This is because deep base paint is lacking in white pigments and has marginalized coverage.
In fact, any coverage you get will heavily rely on the added tint and the little bit of white pigment that is there. As a result, you may need anything from up to 6 coats of deep base paint to conceal the initial color of the surface.
However, a tinted primer significantly boosts the coverage such that nothing shows through. It also slashes back the coats of paint you’ll require.
3. Finishing
Deep base paint has a tendency to show any imperfections due to its low coverage capabilities. You want to paint carefully and be as uniform as possible to avoid overlapping lines.
Vertical rolling and back brushing is one of the best techniques for applying deep base paint evenly. 2-3 coats of premium deep base paint over primer are sufficient for full coverage.
Because deep base paint creates dark colors, it is best used as interior paint. One disadvantage of deep colors is that they are not as durable as lighter colors when used outdoors.
Darker colors absorb more heat and UV rays. Excess heat absorption leads to quick moisture loss and eventually blistering, while UV rays cause color fading. Consequently, they deteriorate more quickly than lighter colors which tend to reflect these elements.
To use deep base paint outdoors, go for a brand specified as exterior deep base paint. What is exterior deep base paint? It is deep base paint formulated explicitly for exterior surfaces.
Unlike the interior paint, this type of paint will have other stabilizers and agents that protect the deep base paint from harsh outdoor conditions like UV, heat, mildew and make it more resilient to abrasion too.
Hopefully, we’ve shed enough light on the subject of deep base paint. It is the very foundation of dark, deep, bold, or vibrant colored paint, as it contains the least amount of white pigment.
To serve its purpose, however, it must be tinted with a colorant to become the desired color. So the next time you cannot find a ready paint in the color you want, deep base paint is the way to go.
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