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Narrowing down the pool of colors to make a final choice can be challenging. In fact, it's often easy to recognize LOTS of colors you like. It's easy enough to recognize a color you like. There are literally more than 60,000 auto paint colors available on the market and at some point each of those colors was considered to be an "in" color. Whether custom paints or factory paints there are numerous categories of paints as discussed above.ĭeciding between car paint colors can be a daunting task for the casual car or bike owner trying to choose that perfect color for their ride. While custom paints may not be as easily attainable as factory paints, they are readily available and worth the effort if you are looking for a unique finish. Custom car paints range from "loud and proud" to subtle and sleek to fit a wide range of tastes. There is a strong market of car and bike owners looking for colors the stand out and custom paints fill that need. Generally speaking custom paints are made to be unique when compared to factory paints of the era. Custom car paints are basically those that are not factory paints. Essentially, these are the paints that are being applied to assembly produced vehicles by brands such as Ford, GM, Chrysler etc. Factory paints or Original Equipment Manufactur (OEM) colors are those in which are used in the production of commercial vehicles being manufactured in mass quantities. Let us first break down car paint colors down into two general categories custom paints and factory paints. To learn more about pearl colors visit our pearl colors page in the colors menu above. The durability of pearl finishes is generally comparable to that of metallics colors. From an application stand point 2 stage pearls are comparable to their metallic counterparts in ease of application but 3 stage pearls are often more challenging due to the transparent nature of the pearl midcoat. On the contrast, darker and medium shades are well suited for 2 stage applications and often will cover or hide the surface beneath well. In fact many light colored pearl colors such as white pearls require a specific base color underneath making them a true 3 stage color. Lighter colored pearl car paint colors tend to be more transparent than lighter colored metallic shades and as such many pearl car colors require a uniform color underneath since the lighter pearl color is likely not to hide color differences beneath. Pearl colors can be 2 stage where a pearl base color is applied then cleared or a 3 stage system where a solid base color is applied, then a pearl midcoat, and a protective clearcoat. As such, pearl colors are said to have more "color depth" than the average car paint color. Unlike metallic colors whose sparkle is based on a silver aluminum platelet, pearls are available in a wide range of sparkle colors and sizes. Pearl Paint Colors with colored shimmers are made by combining special pigments called pearlescent pigments with traditional transparent pigments. To see these in-person purchase a hand sprayed chart in the color selectors area in the online store. To learn more about metallic paints visit our metallic paints page.
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Metallic paints are often confused with metal flake paint which is a very different type of sparkling paint color that will be discussed later in more detail.
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Relatively speaking durability of metallic paints is good to excellent depending on the system used and color. As a general rule, lighter colored metallic paints are more difficult to apply evenly than darker ones. From an application standpoint, metallic paints can range from very easy to apply to more challenging depending on the color chosen. Combining these metallic pigments with a wide range of transparent pigments yields thousands of distinctly different car paint colors.
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This metallic pigment gives paints a sparkle with numerous variations in sparkle size and brightness based on the type of metallic pigment used. Metallic car paint colors are colors that have a sparkle to them originating from a finely ground metallic aluminum pigment.