Titanium Dioxide in Your Paint Can

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Met our paint supplier rep this week. He tells me there’s going to be a price increase effective early next year – 5-6% for paint. We’ve had steady increases for at least the last 5 years.

Here’s what’s going on: titanium dioxide is a key ingredient in paint. Or, at least, high quality paint. TiO2 is a naturally occurring, mined product – just like the gypsum used in drywall. It looks a lot like baking soda. It’s used in sunscreen (the white paste on your life guard’s nose) and also in paint.

There’s more demand for TiO2 – mostly due to economic expansion in China and India – so the price goes up.

In the big picture view of hiring a professional painter, this increase is relatively small potatoes. Opting for a lesser quality paint means you’ll likely pay for more material to be applied. That means you’re also paying for more labor and before you know it, you’ve more than spent your savings.

The key take-away here? Continue to buy good quality paint – it just doesn’t pay to do otherwise.

Like more info? Need to know how resins, binders and pigments all play together in the can? Give us a call – we’ll put on our propeller hat and play the Paint Geek!