How Resene colours are made

When a designer or architect specifies a colour, or a DIY customer requests a specific shade while in one of our ColorShops, that choice is made possible because of decades of development, research and a lot of trial and error, says Nick Nightingale, Resene Managing Director.

“When Resene launched the British Standard 101 Colour Range in 1969, it was a world first and helped shape Resene and the wider paint industry. How? Well, in order for Resene to achieve all 101 colours, a completely new ‘point-of-sale’ tinting system needed to be set up. Prior to this, paint stores only offered a limited selection of ready-made factory colours. While these colours could be intermixed to create different shades, generally speaking, the new colours were simple dilutions with white.”

The colour chart and new POS tint system were a hit; the only problem was the new colours were prone to fading and often required multiple coats to cover.

“We had released the ‘colour’ genie from the bottle however, so there was no going back to only offering a tight and very limited colour choice,” says Nick. “The Resene solution was elegant, we introduced colour bases (magenta etc) and sourced high-grade, high-strength colourants (aka tinters) that were developed for in-factory use and adapted them for our POS tinting system. Resene has not looked back since then.”

To understand what makes Resene colours so special, it’s important to understand what paint is made of. The main components of paint are binders and pigments – the raw materials, as it were.

Binders help the paint stick to a surface, bind the pigments to the paint and form a protective film. The type of binder used will depend on the type of paint it is and the painting task at hand. Solventborne binders are often referred to as resins and waterborne binders as latex.

Pigments are the solid, insoluble materials that are added to a binder to produce colour, reduce gloss/sheen and provide physical properties such as texture or anti-corrosive qualities.

The quality of the finished paint will always come down to the quality of the raw materials. Low-cost paints usually use cheaper pigments that will not have the same quality of lightfastness and fade resistance, which means they will fade faster once they are on your wall and may need extra coats to get a good finish.

This is why Resene will always caution consumers to beware other companies who claim their paint can be tinted to match any Resene colour. This is due to the different paint binders and pigments used by each paint manufacturer. Also, Resene makes its own highly concentrated tinters, says Nick.

“Today, not only do we undertake our colour research and development in New Zealand (since 2005), we also manufacture the colourants. This has allowed us to take the initiative and introduce additional tinters and bases as new pigments and technologies become available.

“Very bright greens, yellows and latterly ultramarine blues have been added to the Resene range, alongside other innovations such as CoolColour Technology. The CoolColour additive is specially formulated to reflect infrared heat, helping mitigate heat gain in substrates and thereby extending product life by up to 20% longer than the same non-CoolColour variant.

“Resene literally has thousands of colours and the ability to create an infinite amount more, helping to ensure our built environment is just a little bit more colourful.”

blackwhite magazine

This is a magazine created for the industry, by the industry and with the industry – and a publication like this is only possible because of New Zealand and Australia's remarkably talented and loyal Resene specifiers and users.

If you have a project finished in Resene paints, wood stains or coatings, whether it is strikingly colourful, beautifully tonal, a haven of natural stained and clear finishes, wonderfully unique or anything in between, we'd love to see it and have the opportunity to showcase it. Submit your projects online or email editor@blackwhitemag.com. You're welcome to share as many projects as you would like, whenever it suits. We look forward to seeing what you've been busy creating.

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