Home-made Chalk Paint vs Rainbow Shabby Chic Chalk Paint – Customer Comparison!

Perhaps you’ve seen people making their own chalk paint on the internet and wonder if it actually works…

Well, we challenged one of our customers to find out how home-made compares to our Shabby Chic Chalk Paint – and here’s the result:

Sandi’s Story: Home-made Chalk Paint VS Rainbow Chalk Paint

I bought a second hand wicker wardrobe for my spare bedroom in Essex, with the intention of doing it up.

The previous owner of the white wardrobe tried to spray paint it matte pink for her daughter and, after running out of paint, decided to give up…

Put simply, it looked disgusting!

I saw an online tutorial on creating a home-made chalk paint solution using a mix of ingredients but, after speaking to Rainbow, they sent me a pot of their Shabby Chic paint so I could do a proper comparison.

Here’s what I found:

1. Ease Of Use – Which Paint Was Easier To Prepare?

Home-made chalk paint:

For my home-made chalk paint, I used:

• Chalk sticks
• White emulsion paint

The internet told me to mix 1 part chalk with 4 parts paint.

I ground up the chalk in a pestle and mortar, measured out the paint and began to mix using a long piece of firewood.

I mixed and mixed until I couldn’t feel my arm because I wanted to make sure the paint was as smooth as possible!

Rainbow chalk paint:

For my professionally made tin of chalk paint, Rainbow supplied me with:

• 1 Litre of Chalky White Shabby Chic Paint

Having received the paint within 2 days of ordering it, I opened it, gave it a quick stir (10 seconds) and it was ready to go.

Much quicker and far less elbow grease!

Winner: Rainbow Shabby Chic Paint

2. Cost – Which Paint Was Cheaper?

Homemade paint:

All in all, the ingredients for my 5 litres of homemade chalk paint came to about £14

Rainbow Shabby Chic paint:

The 1 litre tin of Shabby Chic Paint comes in at £17.99.

Winner: Homemade Shabby Chic Chalk Paint

However, I must say that, although the Rainbow chalk paint was £4 more expensive, it was already winning for me after I was left with a sore arm from mixing my home made concoction!

3. Finish – How Do The Paints Compare On Wood?

Here’s where the outstanding difference becomes apparent. On the left side is my home-made chalk paint and on the right side is the Rainbow Shabby Chic paint.

I was stunned by the difference. When Rainbow sent me their paint, I wasn’t expecting there to be a huge difference in the finish.

As you can see in the image above my homemade paint is lumpy and streaky, while Rainbow’s paint is smooth and opaque.

The home-made paint wasn’t just lumpy either…

Rainbow’s paint felt smooth to the touch and I could hear the difference by rubbing my hand down each surface – my homemade paint felt like sandpaper!!

The overall winner? Rainbow Chalk!

I ended up sanding down my home-made paint to remove the lumps and covering it with the Rainbow paint. The finished product looks great!

I wasted a lot of time trying to save money by creating my own. I could have achieved the look I was dreaming of far more simply by using the Rainbow Shabby Chic Paint.

While you get more paint for your money if you make it yourself, you’ll also end up with twice as much work from mixing and sanding.

With Rainbow’s paint, all you need to do is open the tin, give it a quick stir and start painting.

You can decide yourself if the extra hours of work are worth it, but I know who my winner is…

Winner: Rainbow Shabby Chic Paint

Get creative with Rainbow Chalk Furniture Paint

A massive thank you to Sandi in Leigh-on-Sea for conducting this experiment for us! We are thrilled that you were happy with your finished wardrobe using our paint.

To buy your tin and start your project, take a look at our 37 matte and metallic shades – There’s something for everyone!