Quality Checklist for a Good Topcoat

The wide variety of topcoats to choose from can be very confusing. But, trust that the perfect topcoat for your project is out there. Para Sure Tip: don’t just pick what’s cheapest on the shelves. Go for quality such as Island Prima.

Before we dive into a run-through of qualities that make up a good topcoat, let’s take a peek on what makes paint, paint.

The Components of Paint

By learning about the components of paint, it should be easier to understand how it performs and how it becomes quality-grade. The basic components are:

• Pigments

Freshly ground powder, suspended in liquid that cause your paint to have color.

• Binders

As the name suggests, these are acrylics, polyurethane, polyesters, resins, epoxy or oils that create a film that holds your paint (its components) together, controlling how it dries.

• Vehicles (liquids a.k.a. water or resin)

Water’s duty in paint is to manage its viscosity or thickness. Viscosity affects paint’s coverage and spreadability. The lesser the paint’s viscosity, the easier the paint spreads on a surface. Inversely, the thicker a paint’s viscosity is, the smaller the area that it can cover.

• Additives

Additives are the optional components that may be added to a paint’s formulation. Examples of additives are preservatives that fight bacterial growth or the appearance of molds when paint is applied in moist areas, or a UV protection ingredient that activates when paint is applied on an exterior surface.

What Makes a Good Topcoat

How the paint components come together dictates how your topcoat performs and displays qualities of top performance. For your guidance, the qualities to look out for are:

• Excellent Hiding Quality

A good topcoat should be easy to apply, and have good spreadability or should cover a good area without appearing to be too thin. A-grade topcoat would only need one coating, which should cut costs in budget for paint.

• Superior Adhesion

If your paint brand uses less than quality binders, you’ll find cracks and peels. Binders, as discussed above manage how your paint dries on the surface you used it on. It takes care of your paint’s adhesion and makes sure that air pockets or water does not seep through and create visible damages.

• Outstanding Color Retention

When you paint with a vivid color, you’d naturally want that vivid color to last long. A good topcoat should have you covered on this, making sure that your paint remains alive, resistant to fading, chalking and yellowing (for your whites).

Island Prima: The Topcoat with a Product Satisfaction Guarantee

Island Prima is a pure acrylic-based paint by Island Premium Paints. It comes in different sheens and a wide range of colors, so that you may use it for a variety of interior and exterior surfaces.

An advanced-formulated paint made for the Philippine weather, Island Prima delivers good alkaline resistance in a durable finish. It demonstrates the most important qualities of a topcoat with Product Satisfaction Guarantee.

Discover more advanced-formulated paints by Island Premium Paints, as well as suggestions on home decorations and home improvement.