The popularity of satin paint has been growing at an exponential rate for a few years now due to the busy life’s that people lead and satin paint being able to help create a nice relaxing atmosphere. With so many people moving over to using satin paint from the more traditional paint finishes, we have noticed more and more questions from the community about getting the most out of their satin paint.
One of the more popular questions that we have seen people consistently asking is based around the common problem of having brush marks in satin paint once the paint is dry. Although having brush marks in your satin paint is a very common problem, especially for beginners to home decor, it is thankfully very easy to avoid in most cases.
In this article, we are going to be going over the common causes of having brush marks in your satin paint as well as how you are able to best avoid them with minimal effort. Although the methods that we will be covered below are all easy impliment, some of them do have a cost but most of them are either free or cheap enough that the majority of our readers will be able to use them without issue.
How To Prevent Brush Marks In Satin Paint!
The easiest way to avoid brush marks in satin paint is to avoid using a brush altogether. A paint roller or paint sprayer will make the job of applying your paint much quicker and remove the chances of having brush makes in the paint completely.
If you do have to use a brush to apply your satin paint then try to ensure that both your brush and your satin paint are of a good quality. Higher price does not mean higher quality and there are some very budget friendly brushes and paints on the market that you are able to use.
Low quality brushes will drastically increase the chances of you having issues with brush marks in your paint once dry. The same can be said for low quality paints too but using a low quality brush and low quality paint exponentially increase these risks.
Use A Paint Roller!
The best way to avoid having brush marks in your satin paint is to use a paint roller instead of a brush. Not only does it remove the risk of brush marks but it makes it much easier to apply your saint paint while also ensuring you get an even coat on the painted surface too.
It is usually much cheaper than most people expect to get a decent paint roller these days with the better options with a budget friendly price tag usually being between $10 and $20. These sets usually have other things in with them too making your painting job much easier.
Depending on exactly what you are doing, you can purchase a more expensive paint roller if you wish but the majority of our readers will be fine with the better of the entry level options. The majority of the entry level paint rollers will come with multiple foam rollers too allowing you to quickly and easily switch to a new one if you need to change your paint colors too.
Use A Spray Applicator!
You can take the paint roller one step further and go with a decent paint sprayer if you have the budget available. The tend to retail at between $50 and $150 depending on exactly what you need. If you only need the paint sprayer to apply your satin paint to a few rooms, the cheaper ones should be more than enough to get the job done though.
Paint sprayers offer the same benefits as the paint roller as they don’t need a brush to apply your satin paint so there is no risk of accidentally having brush marks in your paint. Paint sprayers tend to allow you to cover larger surfaces in a much shorter time when compared to a paint roller or paint brush though.
If you do have large walls or a large number of walls that you need to paint then a paint sprayer is the best option. Many beginners think that paint sprayers will be difficult to use too but the tend to be very user friendly and straight forward with most people being able to get them working within minutes.
Use A Decent Satin Paint Product!
As we touched on earlier in the article, the cheaper satin paint products on the market tend to be really low quality and will increase the chances of your brush leaving marks in the paint. This is due to the ingredients in these paint formulas being low quality as well as the ratios of these ingredients often being unoptimal for good performance.
Thankfully, a decent satin paint is usually only around $5 more than the absolute cheapest options on the market allowing most people to upgrade their paint without having to break the bank. Although these higher quality paints are more expensive, it really does show and their performance is considerably better than the cheapest options in multiple ways.
The better ingredients and more accurate ratios that these ingredients are used in often remove some of the common causes of brush marks in your satin paint without you actually having to do anything else. If you do have to use a brush when applying your satin paint and can’t switch over to a paint roller or a paint sprayer then upgrading to a better satin paint formula is probably going to be the best route forward.
Make Sure That You Have The Correct Amount Of Paint On Your Brush!
So many people make the mistakes of either having too much or too little paint on their brush when they try to apply their satin paint. Amongst other things, this can result in you accidentally getting brush marks in your paint when applying it.
Thankfully, this is easy to avoid in the majority of cases and you can dip the brush in the paint for around a second and then wipe the brush on the edge of the paint tub a few times to get an optimal amount of paint on your brush. Depending on the specific paint formula that you are using, you may want to slightly adjust this method but guidance should be offered on the label of your paint formula.
If you are using a lower quality satin paint as explained earlier in the article, it can make it hard to keep enough paint on your brush due to many of the formulas being way too runny. This just adds to why you should be trying to go with a decent satin paint formula where and when possible.
Use A Paint Additive To Eliminate Brush Marks!
Although there are some paint additives on the market that you add to your satin paint prior to applying it that promise to prevent brush marks, they are usually a waste of time and money. In most cases the evidence that they use to back it up could just be down to the methods that we have covered above rather than the paint additive being used.
That said though, there are a number of people who do use these paint additives and feel that they do help to prevent brush marks from staying in their paint once applied. Although we advise against it due to feeling they are a waste of money, you can try them if you wish.
If you do choose to try and use one of these paint additives then be sure to go with a decent formula that is at least $10. The cheaper products are notorious for having issues with weakening the paint so it ends up peeling after a few months to them causing the paint to fade in color quickly too.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to prevent brush marks in satin paint to a close. There are plenty of options that you can use above to help prevent yourself from having issues with brush marks in your paint and you can often get away with just using one of the methods above rather than using all of them.