I quit using Aura for wall painting about 2 years ago though I will still use the Matte finish when people want a washable flat. I'm leaning away from BM these days and more towards SW. BM is more durable for sure, but the application and getting it to look good on the wall is becoming more of a challenge. My theory is that a paint manufacturer will introduce a paint line, people will love it for a while, and then they mess with the formula or cheapen it to increase profits or whatever and the painter will start to notice about 4-5 years down the road. Case in point, I just did a job last year painting trim where I painted an addition in 2008 with BM Aura semi-gloss and there was still a half gallon left from 2008 so I was able to compare the 2008 version with the 2016 version and it was a night and day difference. The 2008 version covered better and levelled out better. The whole reason I used to love Aura was for it's levelling out properties. Ahh well, at least SW is cheaper!

Thanks for relating all of your experiences. Rhome--I'm not sure about how quickly for the yellowing. My painter has warned me about it several times. Since my Carrara is so gray, I don't want to risk the oil yellowing and turning my white cabs into the wrong color in 5 years. I'm having a hard enough time picking the right white paint that doesn't have yellow undertones as it is! My painter does cab painting as one of her part-time jobs. She works at an espresso stand and does decorative painting also. She is an old friend of my cab maker who has only been making cabs for about two years now. He uses her, but I could find my own person if I'd like. I only saw one example of her painted cabs from my cab maker. The kitchen looked great, but the paint was very creamy and had about 5 layers of glaze so it doesn't compare to a clear, white, non-glazed finish that I'm after. When we met, we didn't like any SW color to compliment my Carrara so we choose a BM color. When the sample door arrived back to us, she has used SW paint instead and choose the closest SW color to the BM one I had picked. I was rightfully a bit annoyed. She said that there used to be a BM store near her, but it had since closed. The cloest BM paint is now at a hardware store, which she says she doesn't trust that she'd get product/painting advice if she needed it. So she switched to SW without telling me. Now, she says she'll do whatever we'd like her to do, but assures me that SW is as good a quality as BM. Like I said, I doubt that to be an absolute. I've asked her to do a sample of a different color (the first one was way too yellow for my gray Carrara) in BM water-based Satin Impervo. I also told her that if she was given advice that another BM water-based product would be better than the Satin Impervo I was OK with that also. Getting a better deal on a particular brand of paint isn't an issue for her. I don't think she buys enough paint to be a regular anywhere. Most of the time my cab maker is asked for stained cabs.

I am in the process of painting my shed BM Graphite after seeing Chris loves Julia home exterior color. I’m doubting myself now because of how dark it is. Which seems crazy to me becasue I LOVE the look of deep dark charcoal no undertone colors. The photo of Chris loves Julia’s exterior is really a true depiction of the shade. When looking for other examples of exteriors painted in that color I found a photo that sealed the deal for me. However However, it was just a touch lighter in that photo but I just chalked it up to lighting differences in the photos. After painting 2 sides with 1 coat of Graphite I’m realizing that while it may be the same paint color maybe i prefer the lighter look. I’ll post some photos below. I can say for sure that BM Graphite in my opinion shows no underlying tones of blue or brown. Just picked up samples of BM Racoon Fur & Witching Hour. I’m about to paint and then compare. I will upload photos for anyone struggling with finding that ”perfect” gray color you had in your mind. Lol

All paint colors have a CIELAB value. It's like color DNA. Those values are used to figure out how to make paint colors. There is more than one way to mix the same color. In other words, there are several combinations of colorants that will result in the same color. That's how crossing brands works. Everybody is using the same (essentially) CIELAB value and paint chip as the target. Sometimes it's easy to hit that target using another brand's bases and colorants and sometimes it's not. Which is why some paint colors cross brands easily and some do not. How well the store's equipment is maintained and calibrated is a factor as well. Comparing formulas - even within the same brand - isn't going to tell you anything. The list of colorants is completely meaningless because the formula is not the genesis of the paint color. The CIELAB value is. The only way to know how good or bad a color match is, is to measure it with a device. Like a spectrophotometer at the paint store or a hand-held colorimeter like a Color Muse that you can buy in some SW stores, The Home Depot, or order it off Amazon. A color measurement device captures CIELAB values from dried samples and the apps that go with them tells you in terms of Delta E how much the two colors, original and the match, differs.