Well, I do have a rep from SW that keeps calling me trying to get me to buy more from their store and he's constanly telling me to try the Emerald because it's just like Aura and it was made to compete with Aura. So, that is where I'm getting my information. I have used Duration Home and I can say in the matte sheen at least, that this paint is complete garbage. Also, I never liked the texture of Duration so I stay away from it. I paint mostly smooth drywall though. This won't be a factor if you have textured walls.

Don't know answer, but just let me encourage you to make the move from Dunn-Edwards to Benjamin Moore. I live in a Dunn-Edwards centric area, and first painted my house with 100% DE ... after 2 years one of the colors ('white beach") has faded terribly - in low sheen in high sun LR. "white beach" in semigloss, no natural light bathroom never dried all the way - after 2 years the walls are still 'sticky". Paint guru said it was the polymers in DE paint. Anyway, I'm switching to BM and am much happier with the quality of the paint. Regal is great. I find Aura harder to use. The only "gottcha" with BM, as far as I can tell, is that their colors are not as geared to the southwest/west coast as Dunn edwards, so be sure to sample well, even when you get that color match. Good luck! You are on the right track, IMO!

I've been using Aura since it came out. I am not a professional painter but repaint my rooms frequently. I do love Aura in any room but bathrooms. I have used it in 2 different houses, and painted in 4 different bathrooms in 2007, 2008, 2012. Each of the bathrooms has proper ventilation and the exhaust fan is always used when showering. All of the walls were properly cleaned before painting. In every bathroom where it was used, the paint has streaks. Some of these can be "washed" off but re-appear soon again. Do a search on Aura paints and you will see this is a wide-spread problem in bathroom use. I will continue to use it in other rooms but no more bathrooms!

(shaking my head) I've written about full spectrum color for a long time now, mostly on here, but have a sparse amount of info other places too. Full spectrum is the #1 searched keyword for the last two months. The data and inquiries I've received tells me there is a palpable desperation for information. I can only hope that BenM's complete lack of support and concern for in-store level knowledge and materials is doing nothing but pushing customers to Ellen Kennon and other originators and proprietors of full spectrum paint/color. Yet another oops is color consultants (in closed groups on FB) are kind of torqued with the news that once (if ever) the fandecks for Color Stories do come out, they will have to BUY them. Uh, not gonna happen here. Understand EK and the smaller distributors of FS being in a position that they just can not give away full sets of hand-painted palettes. But, we're talking Ben Moore here. Seriously - like I'm going to spend $$ on a fandeck and sell gallons of FS paint for Ben Moore. Let me polish up my crystal ball and speculate how that might play out: Once my cleint or their contractor gets to the Ben Moore store to purchase the FS, what's going to be waiting there for them? Painfully underinformed paint counter staff who will likely say they don't *need* that full spectrum stuff. "A nice can of Regal (or whatever stock they need to off) will do just fine. Why not save yourself $20." And paint stores do have their own agendas and push overstock and discontinued product because it is to their advantage to do so -- the customer's project-at-hand is not always the driving force behind product rec's. Let's not forget about the contractor involved. He has an agenda as well and FS may or may not fit into how he wants things to go. At which point in time, I'll be making a phone call. An hour later and said paint counter staff understand why FS is different and matters. Still not 100% on board but now they're worn down to the point they just want to mix up paint and get me and my client out of their life. Can only hope it's a contractor who is willing to work with me and won't play his established-relationship-with-the-store card and team up against me to convince client to change paint specification. And if that happens, I'm back at square with with the color consultation because you just don't sub regular color for FS without chips, samples, swatches, evaluation/testing -- the whole shebang. Guessing the deck will be about $75. And every time I have an order for BenM FS the same thing will happen because odds are it won't be the same paint store or staff. Every time I'm down at least two hours explaining and educating paint store staff and reassuring my client. No matter how well I am able to bring the counter staff up to speed and reassure client, there will always be an air of uncertainty on the part of my client questioning if the hassle and extra money for an alleged *special* can of paint is worth it. Again, if contractor is not on board, he'll be there thru the whole project with the opportunity to drive home his point of view further undermining my client relationship. I'm suppose to essentially pay Ben Moore for the deck to start this process rolling. A process that will no doubt do nothing but eat time as I have to manage the inevitable. All that just to sell full spectrum paint for Ben Moore. If -- IF -- I have this all correct, let me just say they're outta their freaking minds and completely delusional about who needs to be paying who and for what.