Testing Glass Paint for Paint Your Poison!
Before I give you the low-down on basically every damn glass paint you can get your hands on, I must tell you about what I’ve been busting my butt on for the past 3 months! My business partner, Amanda Leksche, and I have been hard at work creating Lansing’s BEST new paint & sip company; Paint Your Poison! We have tested countless paints and substrates to bring you tons of fun painting options! Paint Your Poison is the mobile paint party where YOU CHOOSE how to customize your painting when you buy your tickets online! That is only ONE way in which we differ from other painting events. We are the ONLY 100% LOCALLY owned and operated mobile paint and pour company in the Greater Lansing area! We are the only paint party that uses GLITTER, UV FLUORESCENT PAINT, and METALLIC PAINT! Paint Your Poison is the only painting class that lets you paint on multiple substrates such as glass, totes, hardboard, black canvas, white canvas or pallets! (We even have plans to add MORE types of paint and substrates as we grow.. the sky is the limit!) We have partnered with so many great bars and restaurants to bring our classes to your favorite local hang outs and will be branching out to Portland, Grand Ledge, Eaton Rapids, Mason, Okemos, East Lansing, Williamston, Howell, Dewitt, Bath, Laingsburg—with more to come! We are excited and SO ready for our launch event where we will show ya’ll how to paint our version of the Aurora Borealis: complete with UV reactive paint, glitter, and black light flash lights! Your choice of blue or purple background. We hope to see you there: Click for tickets.
MEET YOUR CONTENDERS
1) Pebeo Vitrea 160, Color #66 Silver, Frosted
- Water-based, Non-toxic, Dishwasher safe
- Specifically for glass
- To cure: Put in 325°F oven for 40 minutes
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
2) Pebeo Vitrea 160, Color #07 Amaranthine, Gloss, Transparent
- Water-based, Non-toxic, Dishwasher safe
- Specifically for glass
- To cure: Put in 325°F oven for 40 minutes
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
3) Pebeo Vitrea 160, Color #11 Turquoise, Gloss, Transparent
- Water-based, Non-toxic, Dishwasher safe
- Specifically for glass
- To cure: Put in 325°F oven for 40 minutes
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
4) Marabu Glas, Color #223 Blackberry, Gloss, Highly Transparent
- Water-based, Non-toxic, Dishwasher safe
- Designed for use on glass, acrylic plastic and porcelain
- To cure: Put in 320°F oven for 30 minutes or dry for 3 days
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
5) Plaid FolkArt Medium, #869 Glass & Tile Medium, Matte
- Water-based
- Designed for use on glass, tile, or other non-porous surfaces
- Process: Put medium on glass, Put acrylic paint over it, Put final layer of medium on paint
- To cure: Allow paint to dry for 2 weeks
- Decorative use only
6) Plaid FolkArt Enamel, Color #4142 Perfect Purple, Gloss, Opaque
- Water-based, Non-toxic, For glass and ceramics, Top rack dishwasher safe
- To cure: Put in 350°F oven for 30 minutes or dry for 21 days
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
7) DecoArt Americana Crystal Gloss Enamels, Color #DAGT08 Purple, Gloss, Highly Transparent
- Water-based, Non-toxic, For glass and ceramics, Dishwasher safe
- To cure: Let dry for 4 days then put in 275°F oven for 30 minutes
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
8) DecoArt Americana Gloss Enamels, Color #MDAG34 Lavender, Gloss, Opaque
- Water-based, Non-toxic, For glass and ceramics, Top-rack dishwasher safe
- To cure: Let dry for 4 days then put in 325°F oven for 30 minutes
- Not recommended for surfaces that come in contact with food
So as it turns out pretty much none of these companies want to say their products are food-safe. They’re all non-toxic except for the glass and tile medium by FolkArt. Non-toxic vs. food safe? It’s safe to be near food but not touch it? Basically you can use it on the outside of your glass, away from where you put your mouth and it cannot come in contact with your food. It sounds like mostly they’re just covering their asses but I definitely will be abiding by these rules and advising customers to do the same.
A couple more safety tips here: even though many of these are dishwasher safe they are NOT microwave safe. I think they may produce some sort of chemical if they are heated in a microwave. I’m not sure.. just guessing.. but absolutely don’t heat them up in a microwave. As for curing them in the oven? Put them in a cool oven and let them heat up with the oven. If you put a cold glass into a hot oven it will most likely shatter so DON’T DO THAT! Also wait for it to cool before you take it our or you will burn yourself!
Another thing I noticed about all of these companies is that they have like multiple brands, sub-brands, sub-sub-brands, and extremely similar sounding products in their own line and compared to other brands. For example, there is Marabu Glas and Marabu GlasArt: both are meant for class but they are completely different paints. Y tho. There is DecoArt Americana Crystal Gloss Enamel and DecoArt Americana Gloss Enamel. What is the actual brand? DecoArt or Americana? At least these two paints LOOK different. I feel like they could have done a better job naming these. My brain hurt pretty bad after trying to keep track of what I liked and didn’t like, the curing times, which ones I had and hadn’t tried yet, etc. Lucky you, I did all the work for you!
(Pictured above) Pebeo Vitrea 160 was our favorite for looks and durability, but it was the most expensive by far. We didn’t like it as much for ease of use for people who aren’t familiar with glass painting or fine art. We thought we would have a hard time creating designs with all transparent paint. It was going to be hard to dispense to people as there was no squeezey top like the FolkArt and DecoArt bottles. The Pebeo had a more gel-like consistency and although it was transparent it did have quite a bit of pigment in it compared to the DecoArt Crystal Gloss and the Marabu Glas. The colors we tested were really pretty and it was SO durable I couldn’t scratch it off at all. If we need frosted or transparent paint in the future we might use a few colors of this!
(Pictured above) We were massively disappointed by all of these above glass paints: DecoArt Americana Crystal Gloss Enamel, Marabu Glas, and Plaid FolkArt Glass & Tile Medium. I think they certainly all serve their purpose in the art world, but for what we needed they failed miserably. DecoArt Crystal Gloss was SO transparent I had to glob it on. If you’re looking for the tiniest hint of color then this would be just fine… but we definitely wanted to see the paint. Marabu Glas was just straight liquid almost like water. You can tell it pooled at the bottom of where I applied it. This is not suitable for anything other than a flat surface (something that can lay flat on the ground until it dries) in my opinion. If you are looking to paint a flat piece of glass with a stain-like look I think this would probably be great for that and much better than the DecoArt Crystal gloss for a stain look.
The FolkArt Glass & Tile Medium didn’t really work how we were hoping it would. For some reason I thought we could mix it with regular acrylic paint to make it suitable for use on glass. That’s not the case. You have to put a layer down, then paint over it with acrylic, then put another layer on top of your painting. Not practical for a class setting at all. It would work to make it look like your glass is etched if you just use the medium but I found that it scratched off really easily too. It was also the only one that was for decorative use only and it took TWO WEEKS to cure.
(Pictured above) It turns out the Plaid FolkArt Enamel and the DecoArt Americana Enamel were nearly identical and also close in price. Plaid FolkArt Enamel has a great starter pack set of colors on Amazon though for a steal, so we went with them! Yay Prime! The colors are pretty nice and easy to use for beginners. The colors mix easily and are completely opaque. The squeeze top lids were a bonus. After properly curing they’re difficult to scratch off. They don’t seem to be quite the same level of resiliency as the Pebeo Vitrea 160 paints, but they are definitely top rack dishwasher safe and they’re easy enough to cure!
Overall we are very happy with our decision and we really hope people enjoy painting glass with us! We have 2 glass classes in April, and the beer themed one is very near and dear to my heart! (Hoppy Time Beer Glass Paint Party on April 14th at Midtown Brewing Co) If you like us on Facebook.com/PaintYrPoison we are planning on offering huge discounts for most of our April classes. Keep an eye on us and stay in the loop!