What surfaces is matt paint suitable for?

At Lick, we have designed our multi-surface matt paint in all of our 99 colours. This article provides you a guide as to which surfaces you can and cannot achieve a high quality finish on.

For how to prep your walls, we would suggest starting here.

What surfaces can I paint on?

Interior Walls ✅

Of course, our matt paint can be used on interior walls within your home or business (except for bathrooms & kitchens where we'd recommend our Eggshell). Like when painting with any emulsion, be sure to prepare the surface for paint. This includes first cleaning and then sanding down/dusting to create the right surface for the paint to adhere to and bond with.

Interior Woodwork ✅

Our matt paint is appropriate for woodwork and other surfaces. If you’re painting in an area that is likely to get wet, or that needs a little more protection for daily wear & tear, then we would recommend our Eggshell paint for best results and longevity.

​For tips and more details on painting on wood skirting boards or on other wooden surfaces, we’ve created this helpful guide.

Furniture ✅

Whilst our paint is durable, if you're painting on furniture or areas likely to receive a high amount of handling we advise customers to use varnish after painting for additional protection. We suggest using the Bedec Water Based Varnish, which also comes in a Matt finish.

Radiators ✅

A number of our customers have used our multi-surface paint for radiators and had a good experience - although of course it won’t match the performance of a radiator-specific paint. When painting a radiator make sure the radiator is turned off and cool before painting, and leave to dry for at least 24 hours before turning the heating back on. We advise against the use of our paint on oil-fired radiators.

Laminate ✅

A laminate surface can be a hard surface for any paint to adhere to. We suggest using Zinsser oil-based primer (matt) to prepare the laminate, and allow that to try before painting it with Lick paint.

Front doors ✅

Whilst we do not recommend our paint for general outdoor use, you can use Lick on front doors! Some bright colours will show a change in colour over time by fading due to UV, but that will be natural and depends upon the pigments that create the colour. Earthy colours, and in particular black and whites are more stable.

Preparation:

• Clean down the surface with a washing up liquid solution to remove dirt, grease and anything else on the surface of the door. Rinse off the solution and dry.
• Lightly abrade the surface with a fine abrasive paper to matt the uPVC, or remove dead wood cells on the wood. Dust off.
• If the wood is unpainted, it will be absorbent, so apply a priming/mist coat - that can be done using our paint diluted by 30% (i.e. 7 parts paint to 3 parts water) with clean water to penetrate and enhance adhesion. Then apply 2 or 3 further, unthinned coats.
• When painting uPVC our paint can be applied unthinned.
  
  

Over wallpaper ✅

Our paint can be used to paint over wallpaper.
We've also written a longer-form guide on how to do this the best way, here.

What surfaces can I not paint on?

Bathrooms ❌
For bathrooms we would recommend our Eggshell paint to help reduce delineation marks. 

Outdoor surfaces ❌

For multi-surface outdoor use we would recommend our Exterior paint.
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Tiles ❌

We also do not recommend using our paint on tiles. The tile is a very difficult surface for any paint to stick to over time. We would recommend looking at a specialist tile paint.

Floors ❌

Due to the high tread of floors within a home, we cannot guarantee the quality or longevity of our paint on floors. We recommend taking a look at specific floor paint for a job like this. If you are set on painting your floorboards with our lovely colours, then you may want to consider a special anti-slip varnish to protect the finish and the longevity of the paint.

We hope this has helped you understand if Lick is right for your project! To discuss your project further, including colour advice please drop us a message and we will be in touch shortly!