Magic of paints

Give new lease of life to your walls with a fresh coat of paint

Pretty walls make pretty homes! Changing the colour of a room can have a huge positive effect on how the space looks and changes the overall appearance of the place. Psychologically, colours of the rooms in your home are a direct reflection of your personality and they influence your moods and thoughts as well. The region is going through a lot of changes in terms of market conditions, new players, more competition, rise of green paints and new technologies in the paints and coating industry. Design Middle East spoke to leading paints companies in the region to understand more about the trends, challenges, competition, and current market scenario.

Topping the trends

Walls speak volume about who you are and what are your choices like. Decorative wall paints, specifically textured and faux finishes, are very much on trend in the UAE. Decorative paints have long been used to add unique finishes that adds life to empty spaces. Renae Hewitt, director of design and global marketing manager, MAS Paints says, “With the realisation that wallpaper isn’t the only option for decorative wall coverings, designers are creating walls with rich texture and pattern from paint that mimic the texture and feel of a variety of classic finishes. MAS Marmorino, Tilal and Maya achieve beautiful, sand and stone-like finishes. Faux finishes can recreate the look of stone, marble, leather, pearl, and the list goes is endless. Faux finishes can be applied to floors, furniture, and ceilings or consider applying a faux finish to a single accent wall, this won’t limit the decorative ideas for the remaining wallS.

Challenges

From rising costs to introduction of VAT and unauthorised players in the market, the industry has its own set of challenges. Sunil Gudur, general manager, Al Gurg Paints lists all the challenges of this industry, “Rising costs (Oil a major source of raw materials in the paint industry have played havoc with a considerable jump in the last six months), tight liquidity conditions, and VAT introduction are the decelerators that are the current challenges. Newer government legislations on issues like product certifications, waste disposal, green practices are adding to the ultimate per litre cost making it uneconomical and eroding the final margins considerably.”
Hewitt further adds, “One of the challenges of MAS, as a manufacturer, is to find strong and stable suppliers of the raw materials needed in order to give the same quality every time and on schedule without any delay. On the consumer’s side, due to the competition and numerous paint manufacturers, there can be confusion and customer choices are made on the price of the product and the quality of the coatings is ignored.”

Inclination towards green paints

Demand for sustainable and green products are increasing and people are becoming more aware and conscious. Rana Khadra, regional colour and creative manager, Jotun Middle East India and Africa shares, “Green paints are definitely gaining popularity as a colour and as a function. In the Middle East, this demand is starting to grow and expand. Driven by governments who have set certain standards as well as leading architects, developers and designers who prefer to use such paints. At Jotun innovation is at core of our products, this is why the products offered today and have been producing for a long time are LEED free and APPO free, amongst many other green compliant features.” Toni Snyder, color specialist consultant, Benjamin Moore Paints ME says, “Most of our products are low and zero VOC and we even have a wonderful product that is low emissions and earned a seal of approval from the Asthma & Allergy Association. A number of our products comply with LEEDS, MPI, and other strict industry standards. Benjamin Moore Paints develops products that minimize the impact on our environment and we eliminated lead, formaldehyde, and mercury, from our paints and met VOC standards long before (American) government required us to.”

Current market scenario
Gudur elaborates the market conditions of the region. “There are too many unorganised players in a shrinking market, which is having an adverse impact on the profitability of the players Also, with severe pressure on cost reduction/control paint users (contractors, applicators, end users) quality of paints and coatings is getting compromised. Even in the payment receipt side the average collection days are just getting longer and longer as on one hand paint suppliers are forced to give extended payment terms (for fear of bad debts) and losing customer to competitors (who are offering better credit facilities). Needless to add legal course is a time-consuming exercise and with laws getting relaxed on cheque dishonoured is adding to the collection woes.”

New technology
Paints and coatings with extended shelf life, better safety features, and “One of the most important factors is durability. Others are paint washability with non-fading colours. This is why we have recently launched the superior product that encompasses all of these properties called Fenomastic Wonderwall, for beautiful wall every day. For exterior paints in our region, the key technologies are for the product to withstand the sun and heat while helping reduce temperatures of the structure and in turn aid in energy conservation such as our superior innovative product Jotashield Colour Extreme,” says Khadra. The major and most important technology nowadays came from the demand of sustainable environment protection. Abdullah Al Atrash, managing director, MAS Paints says, “The green products and the environment friendly products with low VOC levels and the water-based coatings which replaced the classic solvent-based paints to reduce the air pollution and retain the ozone layer. Recent building fires in Dubai have also enabled MAS to advance their latest technologies in fire-retardant coatings and fire intumescent Paint.”

New launches in 2018
There are some exciting products that are lined for 2018. MAS Paints have launched innovative acrylic-based paints. Mascryl and Mastic Royal wall paints are perfectly formulated for interior and exterior use, with outstanding washability, excellent colour retention and weather resistance. Mascryl acrylic-based wall paints are designed to produce an even matt and smooth finish for walls and ceilings. On the other hand, Mastic Royal is acrylic copolymer-based emulsion paint with outstanding washability and outdoor durability. Benjamin Moore Paints have introduced Scuff-X, a unique scuff-resistant interior paint and ‘Notable’, dry erase paint which enhances painting projects, converting walls of all sizes into areas that are both creative and practical. Al Gurg Paints are focussing on the decorative segment.

Clearly, with so many options already, there would never be a dull day in the world of paints.