The popularity of satin paint is spiking right now with more and more people starting to use it on on the various surfaces in their home as a part of their home decor. Although satin paint is an excellent option with a ton of advantages over other paint finishes, we have noticed a steadily increasing number of people reaching out to ask if satin paint is waterproof or not.
Due to seeing so many people reaching out about satin paint and its waterproof properties, we have decided to publish this dedicated article going over how satin paint performs with water. This should be able to help as many of our readers better use their satin paint and choose the best rooms in their home to use it in so they have minimal issues.
This should be able to help ensure that you get the best results possible for your satin paint without it flaking, peeling or suffering from color fade too. Also, we know that there are some satin paint formulas on the market that advertise themselves as being more water resistant but we feel most of them are a waste of money and offer minimal benefit over the normal satin paint formulas while having a higher price tag.
Is Satin Paint Waterproof?
Satin paint is not waterproof, even once dry and will usually have a number of issues if exposed to high levels of water and moisture. These issues include peeling, flaking, cracking, and color fade amongst some other less common problems.
If you use a low quality satin paint then these issues will be even more prominent and occur quicker so we always recommend that our readers use a decent satin paint formula for their home decor. Although it will still have issues with water and moisture, it usually offers much better performance that the cheaper formulas in rooms where it is suitable to use satin paint.
Although there are a number of sealing agents that can technically help to protect your satin paint from water, they are usually only available in a gloss or matte finish. This goes against using a satin paint formula as gloss and matte are the extreme ends of light reflection in paint where as satin is usually a nice middle ground of the two and the sealants finish will overrule your paints finish.
Can You Use Satin Paint In Rooms With High Moisture?
We would not recommend that you use a satin paint finish in rooms with high amounts of moisture or water such as your bathroom or kitchen. The constant exposure to moisture will cause even the best satin paint formulas to have issues quickly and spoil your paint.
A decent semi gloss paint is probably the closest that you will be able to get to a satin paint finish that can perform well with water. Many people use a semi gloss in rooms such as their bathroom and kitchen or any other room with high amounts of water and moisture to get the better performance.
You can take this one step further too if needed and opt to use a decent full gloss paint as full gloss offers the best possible protection against water and moisture. That said though, a full gloss paint formula is considerably brighter than a satin paint formula due to full gloss reflecting 90% of the light that hits it rather than the 40% of light that satin reflects.
Does Satin Paint Repel Water?
Although water droplets can form on satin paint in rooms of your home with a high moisture content, it is a natural process of the water rather than the satin paint repelling the water. Just because you see the droplets of water form on your paint does not mean that the water is not damaging your paint either.
This is a very common mistake that we see people make time and time again, especially beginners to home decor. They seem to think that the droplets are forming on the outer coat of their satin paint so it is fine but over time, this will usually result in peeling, flaking, and other issues with your paint.
Satin paint formulas do not repel water naturally and will usually need some type of sealing agent applied to them to help make it waterproof. Even the satin paint formulas that are marketed as being water resistant will not repel water and only offer marginally better performance than normal satin paint.
How Can You Make Satin Paint Waterproof!
There are a number of sealing agents on the market that you are able to use to help make your satin paint waterproof if needed. These products tend to be very easy to use and extremely beginner friendly while also being cheap considering how well they can perform.
The problem with these sealing agents is that they are only available with a glass or matte finish and the finish of the sealing agent will be the dominant finish due to it being the outer coat. This means that the nice subtle light reflecting of your satin paint goes and you either have a large amount reflected if you go with gloss or little to no light reflected if you go with matte.
Either way, it would usually be better for you to go with the actual paint finish that matches your sealant. If you opt to take the gloss route then you may not even need to spend the extra cash on a sealing agent due to how well gloss performs with water.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over if satin paint is waterproof or not to a close. We hope that you have found it helpful and although satin paint is an excellent option for many rooms of your home, we would not recommend that you use it in areas that have high amounts of water or moisture.
