My store had a major hiccup and I came home with a gallon of battleship gray. 3 colors, had one wrong apparently. Typo?

Before I went back I called BM customer service, had the 75, 25 discussion. Then he said dont know why your dealer did hand calculations its in the system. Like tge 25% lighter or original swiss coffee?

Anyway I asked him for the formula.

My dealer had e colors for full swiss coffee and took it down by 25% for each color.

The customer service formula for 25% lighter is

4 colors, 2 were different so his formula wasnt just 25% less of the 3 colors like my dealer was trying to do. Some sort of compensation?

Had my dealer mix the customer service formula.

Have no confidence its the Studio McGee version which is beautiful.

Waaah

Yes, some Benjamin Moore stores have % formulas for their colors in their system.

But, again, you need to clarify exactly what the expectation is for the resulting color - what does 25%, 50%, etc. mean. Exactly.

I wrote a blog post about it here.

I’m having the same problem and need to choose a paint for cabinets asap. i love swiss coffee but it may be too close of a color to my countertop sample. the countertop looks dingy in some lights. i was hoping to cut it by 25%. lori, all your info i’ve come across has been really helpful and is the reason i grabbed a quart sample first. the ”25% lighter” sample i bought is a super bright white! it must be a mistake.

marie, can you post the formula customer service gave you? here’s a sample pint and a regal select pearl

These are the formulas on the half pint samples I just got from BM.

Not sure if this is how it works with paints, but (4) half pints in (1) quart would mean the conversion is off with these

Also those are the new sample sizes. Previous convo was about the old sample can size.

Because - just for fun @Benjamin Moore - why not add another layer to the confusion of cutting formulas. 😁

Honestky I dont think rhe paint samples are very accurate with light colors at all.

The pitfalls of tweaking formulas are many and requires an attitude of close enough to the expectation is good enough.

Trying to get there with samples makes it even more of a gamble. At the very least, it should be tried in a quart of the grade and sheen planned for gallons.

The smaller the container size, the farther off any "% alteration" will be!

BM is now transitioning to Half-Pint sample jars, from Pints. For White-Base colors, scaling-down in a HALF-PINT size is almost meaningless. Some Colorants present at a low-level in a QUART become irrelevant in smaller sizes.

Some Tinters can't even "drop" a teensy amount! Even my 1yr-old $20,000 D600 COROB has a tough time with anything smaller than a 1/16 of a Shot!!! Lesser equipment can't do it....at all.

So- when shaving LIGHT colors even lighter, plan on a QUART.

Faron

Got my 75% strength Swiss Coffee. The color is perfect. I had to go to the hardware store twice. The first time they mixed it, the guy never did a 75% strength. He found where to enter the strength and double checked it was 25% lighter (75% strength). I got home and it was pure white looking. Went back a few days later and got someone more knowledgable. He pulled up the original formula, and sure enough, the other guy made it 25% strength. They remixed it and now looks perfect. I really like the color. I'm painting my entire new lake house in this color.

Hard to see in this picture, there are 4 color patches. Left to right: 75% Swiss Coffee, full strength Swiss Coffee, Cloud White, 75% Swiss Coffee

Walls 75% Swiss Coffee, ceiling bright white ceiling paint.