Farrow & Ball sells the paint for around £100 for five liters – Andreas von Einsiedel/Getty Images Contributor
Farrow & Ball is installing paint mixing stations at DIY shops across the UK in an effort to see cheaper color-matching by rivals such as Dulux.
It now has 498 devices in stores across the UK and Europe, with participating chains including brewers.
The company – known for colors such as Moles Breath, Setting Plaster and Mouse Back – sells the paint at around £100 for five litres.
It has long been plagued by shoppers printing samples and using cheaper rivals’ in-store color-matching machines to get a similar shade for a lower price.
Asked about color matching the likes of Dulux, Claire Dunbar, managing director of Farrow & Ball, said this approach would never produce the same effect.
She said: “I wish there was more understanding that it’s not really a match.
“They might be able to color match and mix something that looks something like a Farrow & Ball color, but it won’t have that rich pigmentation, the chalky finish, the refraction of light that makes it a completely different feel.” “
Many companies now offer services where they replicate the colors and styles of other brands but at a lower cost.
Ms Dunbar said: “It certainly won’t have the same Farrow & Ball properties.
“I don’t want people to be tricked into thinking they are getting exactly what they want from a cheaper supplier.
“Really for us, the color of what’s in the tin is 8pc. This is the final touch. It is the other 92 pc that is the astute chemistry, formulation and raw material quality that gives a total Farrow & Ball experience that will never be matched by anyone else.
“They’re using cheap raw materials, which is why there’s a cheap price.”
Ms Dunbar said that by making its colors and finishes more readily available from more stores, the business hopes to dissuade customers from colour-matching.
She added: “We have 132 shades and our collection. It’s really hard to try to create products that mix all of them.
“That was when maybe someone would go and color match because we probably didn’t have Nancy’s blushes in a particular store.”
Farrow & Ball was founded in Dorset in 1946 by John Farrow and Richard Ball. It is still the headquarters in the county.
The brand is known for its distinctive, heritage-style paints, which are said to react differently to light throughout the day, and its association with historic properties.
Farrow & Ball reports record sales growth during the pandemic, with a 30% increase until March 2021 as Britons lock down their homes. In the same year it was bought by the Danish coatings supplier Hempel.
Ms Dunbar said the popularity of Farrow & Ball had waned since the end of the pandemic due to the ongoing number of people working from home, at least in part.
She said: “People are trading up because they spend more time in their homes. They have a new relationship with home after Covid.
“He has fallen in love with them all over again because he now spends a lot more time in them. He is changing locations and investing more time in changing locations.
“Those who were dissatisfied with their homes during Covid have now moved and this has further fueled [painting and decorating] market.”
Ms Dunbar said green and pink had become particularly popular in recent months, adding the company had seen an increase in people painting, effectively “drenching” not only their walls but ceilings too.
Farrow & Ball offers 132 different colors. It replaced 11 of them with new colors last September in the first shake-up of its range in four years.
New additions included the heel choice, a light gray “named after the circular streams enjoyed by wild swimmers as a natural Jacuzzi”; and Kittywake, said to be “a clear cool blue inspired by the feathers of these noisy seabirds when viewed in bright sunlight.”
