Painters especially, please help explain the relationship/overlap or non-overlap of these three products to me:

C2 Studio

C2 Luxe

C2 paint bought from Ben Moore

I asked for C2 Paint. In fact I specified it on an updated finish schedule (that no one appears to be reading). I spoke to the painting subcontractor and said I would personally go to the C2 distributor that is (the closest) about one hour from us. I don't recall what he said other than he could get it, no worries. The painting subcontractor has (at this writing) painted most of the house with C2 either just with tinted primer, or with one coat above the primer, or in a few cases two coats above the primer.

He told me about 2 weeks ago he could get C2 because Benjamin Moore carries C2 and he was going to go where he always gets his paint, "Benjamin Moore has it," he said. His distributor gives him a trade discount. OK. I didn't pursue it...that was my mistake. I wasn't exactly keen on making the drive up to the legitimate C2 distributor but I certainly would have been willing to, had I known it wasn't actually C2 paint I was getting...or is that true? I figured, he knows paint, I don't. But—I'm sure he had never worked with C2 before.

About one week ago the painting subcontractor said he was going to paint three coats over the primer, that he and the contractor agreed it would be worth it—in response to my saying C2 probably just takes two coats (what I had read; also I have used C2 twice before some 20 years ago (different house) and then some 10 years ago in the present house.

Today there were two issues with the paint that came up for us. I'll put one aside for now, but the main one is that all of his cans of paint say "C2 Studio" and I only just noticed. I called the C2 (actual distributor) folks where I had gotten sample paint once in person, an hour away. He said to my request for a new sample, "Did I want the Ben Moore product or the actual C2 product? Well...I hadn't been asked that when I went in person.

He also said, when I reported the painter was using "Studio," and asked what is that—is it the same as Ben Moore?" "hardly anyone uses Studio." He implied that it's not a thing, almost. But he couldn't say much more descriptively to indicate what the differences are. My sample can, the real thing, was something like $13 when I bought it some 4 weeks ago. The sample cans we are getting tomorrow are $6 (Ben Moore) and $10 (actual C2? I'm not clear).

The second issue that came up: what is now on our ceiling, two coats, does not look like what we thought it would, based on both a sample of paint he had put on the ceiling for us first (and our comparing the color from the C2 website to others, admittedly an unreliable method to judge).

We are getting the samples just to see if what he has already used, especially the C2 paint itself, will look more like what we wanted/envisioned.

I would love to hear about differences /overlap between the quality and color of the three "types" of paint I listed above.

Also, should we ask for the second (or third in some cases) coat of paint to be Luxe, on top of "Studio," to get us back to what we wanted? Or are they different enough that this would not look very good? It's Friday, and the painters might be making more progress tomorrow, but certainly they will be on Monday, so this is a timely request for advice.

(C2 Salty Brine on left, alternative to Salty Brine for the wall on right, Live Wire visible in adjacent mudroom)

For the record, the paint in question regarding the above questioning of what we have is Halo, a pale, pale yellow. However, I'm more interested in what we have lost in terms of overall visual impact of the paint we have gotten by virtue of gettting all our paints, not just Halo, in "Studio" vs. Luxe, or vs. "Ben Moore product with C2 color." Throughout the house we have some pretty dark colors in certain areas...a dark blue (Cordon Bleu), a greenish blue (Salty Brine), two oranges (Amontillado, Live Wire), and a couple of other colors.