Specialty Paint Finishes #1:

L’essentiel European Style Shimmer High Gloss Top Coat

I promised my Facebook followers on PlafessionalEDU to post on a product I love and use including specialty paint finishes. This is the first as promised…

By now you may have realised I love shine and bling. While I don’t like furniture to be garish or over stated, I do love the prestige of metallic finishes and a little shimmer and shine. For this reason, I’ve become rather attracted to a product called European Style Shimmer High Gloss Top Coat. This product looks like mother-of-pearl paint, but without the colours of mother-of-pearl. I would best describe it as a semitransparent white glittery coating which dries quickly and is a hard top sealer.

I use this specialty paint finish more like a glaze than an overall top coat but intend to do a piece of furniture with this on the whole surface in time. It pretty much turns any light colour into a glittery metallic-like finish.  I have discovered that sponging or rolling and sponging it on a surface will create a frosted effect. This is what I recently used on some side tables I did in Grey Goose and White Clay. The White Clay was dry-brushed on sections over the blue and sponged in other places before the topcoat was applied. Then I dabbed it with a damp cloth to create this effect.

It is really beautiful over whites. I use it on this bed head with great effect. While the bed head was beautiful painted, the shimmer topcoat took it to a whole new level. I gave it a generous brush over sections of the headboard. It has been used sparingly on other pieces of furniture to create a slight sheen. This can be done by dry brushing over the painted surface or the high spots of embossed surfaces or applique’s.

I have used it with great effect over white or light coloured paints. It looks like a Pearl over white and almost silver over a grey.  I’ve yet to use it on dark colours that would imagine it to be used sparingly as to avoid looking cloudy over darks.

The L’essentiel European Style Shimmer High Gloss Top Coat comes in a generous 500ml bottle which goes a long way. If you would like some, go to my shop link, order today and I’ll post you some pronto! It is one of my secret ingredients that’s not so secret now!