Painting with Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint is 180 degrees different than using modern paints. Its simple powdered formula and thinner consistency offer a pleasantly unique painting experience. If you’re new to our gorgeous product line, you may not be aware of what to expect - especially with your first coat of Milk Paint!

Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint is Thin

Like we mentioned above, the consistency of our powdered Milk Paint is thinner than the modern paints you’re familiar with i.e. latex, chalk type paints, etc.

This is because our Milk Paint is made with a handful of simple ingredients - chalk, clay, limestone, pigments and casein (milk protein). You can read more about the basics of our Milk Paint in this foundational post.

The consistency of properly mixed Milk Paint is creamy. It reminds us of melted ice cream, as a matter of fact! Even with this creamy consistency, it will still be thinner than the thick modern paints that are on the market today.

The First Coat of Milk Paint is Ugly

When you’ve properly prepared your surface, and mixed up a batch of Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint, it’s time to brush on the first coat of paint.

The first coat will look something like this:

This first coat is…well…ugly!

You may feel like you’ve ruined your piece and it’s no longer salvageable. You may even feel like dragging that streaky, half-painted piece to the curb.

We encourage you to resist that urge and see your project through to the redeeming second coat.

Milk Painting is Like Getting Your Hair Highlighted

Have you ever visited the salon to get highlights put in your hair? The hairdresser mixes up a batch of color, applies it to your hair, and places pieces of foil all over your head. You look a bit silly, right? That’s kind of like the first coat of Milk Paint.

Once the timer goes off, the hairdresser begins pulling those foils out and you gasp as you look at yourself in the mirror! Your hair looks like it has zebra stripes!

Now we all know that’s not how your hair stays, right? You get ushered back to the sink where your hair is washed. Then it’s blown dry and styled, resulting in a fresh new coiffed hairdo.

What would have happened if you walked out at the stage when you had foils in your hair? You would have quit prematurely, right? Even though the process looks scary, it all works out in the end.

THAT, dear friends, is what it’s like to paint with Milk Paint. You have to push through that ugly first coat (aka having foils in your hair) to the beautiful second coat of paint (aka your hair washed and styled) to get the full effect.

The Redeeming Second Coat of Milk Paint

Once the scary first coat of Milk Paint is dry (which doesn’t take long), it’s time to apply the second “redeeming” coat.

Here’s a great example!

This is the side of an antique empire style buffet. You can see how streaky and transparent the first coat of Shutter Gray looks over the surface. Now look at how much better the coverage gets with the second coat!

It Just Keeps Getting Better!

After you apply your second coat and add a topcoat, things finally start to look the way you hoped they would. In order for you to achieve satisfying results, you have to see your project all the way through to the end. Trust the instructions and the process. It works!

Here’s a fabulous example of the progression of a Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint Makeover:

You can clearly see the beginning, first coat, second coat with details and topcoat stage. See how everything gets better as you go on?

Remember the ugly first coat on the dresser we shared at the start of this post?

Here’s how that started and ended. See how much better it gets?

Here’s how the Mustard Seed Yellow dresser started…

and how it finished!

That Shutter Gray empire buffet turned pretty well too!

We hope this post will normalize the ugly first coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint for you. Be encouraged to push through and see your project all the way to the beautiful end!