All-In-One Furniture Paint Comparison

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All-in-one furniture paints sound too good to be true, right? These paints include a primer and a topcoat and can save you time when painting furniture. My go-to paint is generally Melange Paints ONE furniture paint, but I wanted to try out and compare some other all-in-one paints. While I’ll often prime and topcoat many of my pieces (you can check out my articles on priming and topcoating where I explain why), I wanted to test out different paints and see how they perform.

In this review article, I compared 4 all-in-one paints: Dixie Belle Silk Mineral Paint, Fusion Mineral Paint, Lilly Moon Opulent Paint, and Melange ONE Paint For each paint, I tested durability on three surfaces:

• Paint only (no primer, no topcoat)
• Primer and paint only (no topcoat)
• Primer, paint, and topcoat

Surface Preparation

For all surfaces, I cleaned and scuff sanded as I normally would. Surface prep was equal for all paints. Primer used was Melange Paints Stain Blocking Primer, topcoat was Varathane Waterbased Topcoat in Flat.

Scratch Test

After painting and topcoating (if applicable), I let the paint sit for 7 days before performing a scratch test with both my fingernail and a metal paint can opener.

Test 1: Paint Only

So here’s the bad news, none of these paints performed at their best without primer or topcoat. All 4 brands were scratched away with the metal paint can opener, and the Dixie Belle Silk also scratched off with my fingernail. So while there may be instances where you feel comfortable skipping these steps when using an all-in-one paint, this particular piece of furniture did not do great with a paint-only finish.

Test 2: Primer and Paint Only

But don’t worry, it gets better! Adding a primer to the equation improved my results. The primer I used (Melange’s stain-blocking primer) has both stain-blocking and bonding properties and is a great water-based primer option. After priming and allowing it to dry overnight, I was not able to scratch any of the 4 paints off with my fingernail, and both Lilly Moon Opulent and Melange ONE stayed intact (with minor surface scratching) when using the metal opener. Both Dixie Belle Silk and Fusion had some scratching, but it was much less when compared to the paint only test.

Test 3: Primer, Paint and Topcoat

All four paints performed very well in this category. All paints remained well-adhered and did not scratch or chip off completely. The addition of topcoat created scratch resistant surfaces with all paints and would be something I recommend when using Dixie Belle Silk or Fusion Mineral Paint. I’d also recommend it for any high-use surface regardless of paint brand.

Testing Surfaces for Staining

While this wasn’t something I had initially set out on testing, I decided to test how well the finished surfaces held up to water damage and staining. For this, I placed wet cups and spots of coffee on each surface. I allowed these to sit for 30 minutes on each surface and then wiped back with a clean cloth. While there was some initial discoloration where the liquid was, when dried you could not see any trace of the water or coffee. All paints, both with and without topcoat, passed this test.

Brushstrokes

The presence of brushstrokes in the final finish was the last thing that I compared. If you spray your paint, this won’t be an important factor, but if you brush like I usually do, it is! Melange ONE had the smoothest finish, followed by Lilly Moon Opulent, FusionMineral Paint, and finally Dixie Belle Silk. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to show the differences in photos, but I promise I could see them in person.

Conclusions

Below is a quick chart I pulled together ranking each paint based on scratching, staining, and brushstrokes.

	Scratch Test	Stain Test	Brushstrokes
Dixie Belle Silk	4rd	1st	4th
Fusion Mineral Paint	3rd	1st	3rd
Lily Moon Opulent	1st	1st	2nd
Melange ONE	1st	1st	1st

Overall, I could recommend using any of these all-in-one furniture paints, especially if you are using both primer and topcoat in addition to the paint. However, both Melange and Lily Moon performed very well without the addition of a topcoat, so I can also recommend that. Topcoating is probably still a good idea on a high-use surface, or to give the paint a smoother feel. But you can get away with not topcoating all of the time (or all surfaces on a piece). I would recommend using a good primer in almost all cases (I did before and continue to do so after this experiment).

Questions? I’d love to know what you think about this “test!” Have you used any or all of these products? What was your experience?

Other Helpful articles:

• Priming Furniture: Everything You Need to Know
• How to Seal Painted Furniture: Protecting With A Topcoat
• Learn How to Paint Furniture
• Furniture Paint Review: Melange Paints

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