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color matching F&B

13 years ago

Does anyone have experience color matching farrow & ball paint? I've made myself crazy looking at my BM fandecks, and came across F&B's beautiful (and edited!) palette of colors. Of course, there is nowhere close to us selling F&B, and while I know you can order it, shipping gets pretty pricey, so I was thinking about trying to get the F&B colors matched in BM paint. Bad idea???

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Comments (2)

Faron79
13 years ago
Give your store some time to tweak if necessary...maybe a next-day pick-up kinda thing.

I can usually hit a color pretty-d#mn close!

BUT...F&B has some unique colorants I believe. A store may get real close, but there's no such thing as perfect. It's just not possible.
Plus...there's the "look & feel" kinda thing. I know some people here, and in the Home-Dec. forum, have commented on how "luxurious" the finish seems.

THAT kinda stuff can't be copied...

I spent $45 on a Qt. of FPE, including shipping. Best d@mn paint I've ever used...and I tint C2 paints too!

Faron
rococogurl
13 years ago
I have a lot of F&B experience and also with matching. Talented folks like faron can get the color close -- at least in the can. But what happens when it goes on is a different story for two main reasons.

First, this paint has up to 16 colorants in some hues. That's opposed to 3-4 in most paints. So you get a very complex color on the walls. Additionally, this paint is clay-based and has much better hiding quality than many others. The estate emulsion has a unique, velvety texture on the walls. I feel it really improves the look of walls.

Colors are far more limited than major brands, for sure. Also, they are different on the little accordian fold free sample card than they are on the actual fandeck. Basically, F&B are selling to designers and paint specialists vs the general public. It is more difficult to work with.

However, the surface and color shift are wonderful and unique.

It's not for everyone price wise and many don't feel it's worth paying extra for paint. But I agree with Faron on the "best" issue. I've painted two houses with it. Everyone who walks in comments on the paint colors (which are neutral) and how beautiful they are.

My feeling is either use it or find a BM or SW or PL color that's close to what you like and just use that.
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Thing the about the encyclopedia website is their data is not good. Their calculations start with RGB values that they snag from wherever. They don't measure the colors to industry standards. And it just snowballs from there with regard to F&B. Because F&B notoriously has skewed digital swatches. For the longest time their collateral (chips) weren't great either. But they switched to a company called CCI for some if not all of their collateral so it is markedly improved - especially the brochures. There isn't an "official" RGB value for any color. Because RGB values are just instructions that tell devices how much red, green and blue to light up to make a digital representation of a color. However.... there is such a thing as good/better/best RGB values. F&B website swatch RGB values appears to be marginally good. So if that's where encyclo is getting RGB values to start with, the results you get there for F&B "matches" is going to be one of the more tragically incorrect results. Last but not least, we can reduce entire color collections down to a spreadsheet. There is special software/apps that will show you where collections have "holes" in color space. Those holes are -often- there for a reason; like their particular set of ingredients (base/colorants) can't produce the colors in the "hole". If you're a paint company and don't want to compete with the typical larger manufacturers, you'd look at those holes and fill them. When you do that, it makes it harder to mix a match to your color if you don't have the same ingredients. Not saying F&B or Joanna Gaines does that. I'm just saying that's what I would do if I was selling paint.
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