Is Farrow and Ball paint worth the money? It’s the question I get asked more than any other, and it usually arrives with a bit of an eye-roll attached. Before I jump in, I’m not singling Farrow and Ball out here, this is about all the designer and premium paint brands.
What’s so special about Farrow and Ball? Do decorators actually like it? Is there even a difference? Let me try and answer all of it.
Paint is a surprisingly complex subject. Not that I expect you’re in the market for space shuttle exhaust paint that withstands ultra-high heat (that’s Jotun, who also make an elastic paint that physically stretches in your hands), or for the bomb-proof adhesion of Keim mineral paints, which chemically bond to the surface. But it’s fair to say not all paints are created equal.
When I first started as a designer in 2010, I was a Dulux devotee. Hundreds of premixed colours in thousands of tints, tones and shades, and a wall of paint chips I could spend hours investigating under those little lamps. Why would you pay double for fewer choices? I didn’t understand the difference.
And the trade couldn’t agree either. Some decorators loved Farrow and Ball and Little Greene, some despised them (anyone who witnessed #lickgate in the group knows how heated this gets). It took me a while to work out who was right.
The honest answer: everyone comes to this debate valuing different things. Coverage and the fewest coats. Cost on the whole project. Colour choice. Ease of application. Durability. Colour complexity. Eco credentials. There’s no right or wrong, so I’m not here to tell you to always buy high-end paint or never to. I’m here to show you what’s actually different, so you can decide based on what matters to you.
By designer paints I mean brands like Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Coat, Mylands, and for American readers, Fine Paints of Europe and Benjamin Moore.
1. The Pigment
The first and most obvious difference is pigmentation. Little Greene paints contain 40% more pigment than ordinary paints. On your walls that means colour complexity: greater depth, even in light neutrals, and colours that shift beautifully as the light changes through the day.
(And if you want to see every brand that’s earned a place in my projects, F&B included, they’re all in my interior design supplier directory)
2. The coverage maths (the bit everyone misses)
Premium paints cover more area, so the price-per-tin comparison everyone makes is the wrong sum. Here’s the right one.
5L of Valspar v500 matt emulsion covers 10m2 and costs £38, so £3.80 per m2. A 5L tin of Little Greene Absolute Matt covers 14m2 and costs £85, so £6.07 per m2. To match the Little Greene coverage with Valspar you’d need 40% more paint, which takes the “cheap” option to £53.20, and suddenly the gap isn’t a gap worth arguing about.
Then add the labour: you (or your decorator) spreading around 7 litres of paint to achieve what 5 litres would have done, which is more time and more money. Count cost AND time, and the difference is negligible, often a false economy.
3. The materials
tay with me, this is the scientific bit. Designer paints use high-grade titanium dioxide, a pure white powdered pigment that covers brilliantly. Cheaper paints substitute fillers like synthetic silicates, polymers, clay, talc and carbonate, which cover so poorly that depending on the brand you might need up to 8 times more paint for comparable opacity.
One objection I hear that simply isn’t true, ‘designer paints have hardly any colours’ Visit a Little Greene stockist (mine is William Robinson Interiors in Nottingham, my favourite showroom) and you’ll find around 2,000 premixed colours.
Farrow and Ball vs Little Greene: which would I pick?
The comparison everyone actually googles, so let me answer it straight.
They’re both proper designer paints, both heavily pigmented, both a world away from the budget brands, and you won’t ruin a room with either. The differences are at the edges: Little Greene’s colour collection is far bigger (around 2,000 premixed colours against F&B’s tightly curated card), while F&B’s strength is that very curation, a smaller palette where the colours are famous for a reason and endlessly photographed in real homes, which makes them easier to research before you buy.
If you’re asking which one ends up in my own projects most, it’s Little Greene. The pigment load, the colour range, and the way it applies have earned it that place, and it’s the brand I reach for first at my own stockist.
But if your heart is set on a Farrow and Ball colour, buy the Farrow and Ball. Which brings me to colour matching.
Can’t I just colour match it cheaper?
Let’s pretend you haven’t read this far, cost is your driving factor, and you simply must have Cornforth White in your living room, so you decide to colour match it at Valspar or Johnstone’s. It’ll look identical, right?
No. No it won’t.
I’ve tested this on several colours, light through to dark, and a colour match is rarely accurate. The bases are different: different materials, different resins, and most brands mix their own pigments. Even the spectrophotometer (the gadget doing the measuring) is only about 90% accurate, and sample condition, light and sheen all throw it further.
And the trap most people fall into: assuming light colours are the safe ones to match. In my experience the lighter colours give you MORE headaches, because the lighter bases at the budget brands lean yellow and throw the pale hues off.
If a specific F&B or Little Greene colour is the one you want, the match is not the same colour. Buy the real one, or choose from the brand you’re actually buying.
So, is Farrow and Ball paint worth the money?
Take the pigment, the coverage maths, the materials and the colour-matching truth together and my answer is yes. Yes, it is. Sometimes the bank balance is the biggest consideration and that’s completely fine, there are rooms in my own renovations that prove it. But if you want depth of colour and a durable, cleanable finish that still looks right in five years, the premium brands are the accurate choice, not the indulgent one.
And if you’re about to buy: Home Design Vault members save 10% on Farrow and Ball and 15% at Little Greene, and at hundreds of other sought-after brands, through my trade accounts. Members also get the design library of 360+ done-for-you room schemes and a design team to ask before committing to a colour. Have a look at the Home Design Vault, the paint savings alone tend to cover it.
