These guys were helpful with me and they are down the street from the smith stain manufacturing plant. The man I worked with was named Bob he sourced Amber stain color for me quick. Here is the info Here is a link that might be useful: Smith Concrete Paint For Sale

If anyone has used the Quikrete concrete stain from Lowes I would like to have an opinion on how it worked. I have a concrete porch I want to stain . Thanks

I have used concrete colorant, purchased from a commercial concrete place. You see I poured a colored concrete driveway and one of the helpers I hired spilled a mountain dew soda. Turns out soda, bi-carbonate, takes the color out of wet uncured concrete, so that patch was light grey instead of the buff color I had chosen. So I mixed some of the colorant with water and a little concrete dust, spread it over the area, it blended well and 10 years later the color is still holding that I applied on the exterior. I don't know why a home buider product wouldn't work... :0)

The stain won't affect the stone in the aggregate so it wouldn't work for my application where I wanted to go with a tan color. What I ended up doing is use a tinted gloss sealer. From http://www.directcolors.com/product/ac-1315-high-gloss-concrete-sealer/: DCI Tinted Concrete Sealer Sealer: AC1315 High Gloss Concrete Sealer, Size: 5 gallons, Color: Buff The pic is above. I ended up mixing Buff with Cafe Royale to get the desired color as shown. This stuff lasts really well. I live where it is wet and the patio gets dirty so I pressure wash it periodically which is hard on the finish. I put two coats on it initially to get it to cover the original gray aggregate then every couple of years put one coat on it to refresh it. My environment is pretty harsh due to how wet it is all the time so in less harsh climates probably would last longer. It keeps the sheen really well as well. It isn't slippery either due to stone in the aggregate. Big thumbs up. I applied it with a wide roller from a big box store and it goes on really nice.