The Best Paint Brands for London Homes: A Definitive Guide
An honest comparison of the best premium paint brands available in London — Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Dulux Trade, Zoffany, and Edward Bulmer — covering quality, value, and the right use for each.
Choosing the Right Paint Brand for Your London Home
The paint brand you choose matters more than many people expect. It affects the depth and quality of colour, the durability of the finish, the environmental footprint of the decoration, and — crucially — the experience of actually applying it. Premium paint is not just marketing. The difference between a well-formulated professional paint and a mass-market alternative is visible, and it becomes more visible over time.
Here's our honest assessment of the major brands we use and recommend, based on many years of applying them across London properties of every type.
Farrow & Ball
Farrow & Ball is the most recognisable name in premium British paint, and for good reason. The colour range is genuinely exceptional — carefully developed over decades and consistently updated to reflect evolving taste without abandoning the brand's heritage palette. Colours like Elephant's Breath, Down Pipe, and Wimborne White have become almost shorthand for a certain kind of considered British interior.
From a professional painter's perspective, Farrow & Ball paint requires care in application. It's a water-based paint with a thick, rich consistency and high pigment loading. It demands proper preparation — it won't hide imperfections the way a thicker, cheaper paint might. Applied on a well-prepared surface with the right technique, it produces a finish of extraordinary depth and quality. Applied in poor conditions or over inadequate preparation, it can look streaky and uneven.
The range covers estate emulsion (their signature flat finish), full gloss, estate eggshell, modern emulsion, and exterior masonry, among others. For period properties and rooms where colour depth matters, Farrow & Ball estate emulsion remains our most commonly recommended interior wall finish.
Best for: Period properties, premium interiors, clients who want recognised design credentials, rooms where colour depth and matte quality matter most.
Little Greene
Little Greene is, in our view, often the more practical professional choice — and sometimes the more interesting one in terms of colour range. The brand's heritage goes back to 1773 and their Architects' Collection draws on actual historical precedents from the archives of English Heritage and other institutions.
Little Greene's formulations tend to be more workable than Farrow & Ball — they flow and lay off slightly more easily, which makes them more forgiving in application and can be an advantage on larger, more complex surfaces. The colour range is extensive, with a wide spectrum from the most refined historical tones through to confident modern shades.
Their Intelligent Matt emulsion is excellent on walls, and their Absolute Matt is one of the flattest, most luxurious-feeling finishes available. The joinery range — gloss and eggshell — is robust and produces a clean, durable finish.
Best for: All round premium decoration, clients who want a wide colour range, professional application where workability matters, historically referenced colour schemes.
Dulux Trade
Dulux Trade is not a premium decorating paint in the same sense as Farrow & Ball or Little Greene, but it's one of the most important products in any professional decorator's toolkit and should not be dismissed. The Trade range — distinct from the retail Dulux products — is properly formulated for professional use, with good coverage, reliable consistency, and significantly better performance than mass-market alternatives.
Dulux Trade Diamond Matt is a workhorse interior emulsion with excellent durability, making it an excellent choice for rental properties, commercial spaces, and high-traffic areas like hallways and stairwells. The Trade Satinwood and Trade Gloss ranges are among the most widely used joinery finishes in professional decoration.
Where Dulux Trade is less competitive is in colour depth and subtlety. The colour range lacks the richness and personality of the premium brands, and the finishes — while perfectly good — don't have the same quality of light interaction that makes Farrow & Ball and Little Greene so compelling in residential settings.
Best for: Commercial projects, rental properties, high-traffic areas, primers and undercoats, situations where budget is a primary consideration.
Zoffany
Zoffany sits at the very top of the premium market. Part of the same group as Sanderson, it positions itself firmly at the luxury end, and the quality of both its colour development and its formulations reflects this.
The Zoffany palette is more adventurous than most — it leans into deeper, richer tones and some genuinely unusual colours that you won't find elsewhere. Their mid-century and art deco-influenced shades have become increasingly popular for more architecturally distinctive London properties, and their decorative paint range includes some outstanding specialist finishes.
From an application perspective, Zoffany paints behave similarly to Farrow & Ball — they require care and skill, reward good preparation, and produce exceptional results in the right hands.
Best for: Luxury interiors, clients who want something genuinely distinctive, decorative or architectural projects where colour is a central design statement.
Edward Bulmer
Edward Bulmer Natural Paint is an important brand for a specific category of project: period buildings, listed properties, and clients with strong environmental priorities. All Edward Bulmer paints are made from natural ingredients — chalk, plant oils, earth pigments — and are genuinely lime-compatible, making them appropriate for use on traditional breathable substrates where modern acrylic paints can be problematic.
The colour range is informed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historical research, and the colours have an unusual quality of light — partly a result of the natural pigments, which reflect light differently from synthetic alternatives. The range is not as wide as Farrow & Ball or Little Greene, but every colour in it has been carefully considered.
These paints are not a universal solution. On modern plasterboard or non-breathable substrates, there's no material advantage over conventional premium products. But for lime plaster, stone, and the interior of older buildings where breathability matters, they're genuinely the right choice.
Best for: Listed buildings, conservation-area properties with lime substrates, clients who prioritise natural and low-VOC materials, period interiors where historical authenticity matters.
Which Brand Is Right for Your Project?
The honest answer is that different projects call for different products — and sometimes different products within the same project. We might use Farrow & Ball estate emulsion on the walls of a period reception room, Little Greene joinery paint on the woodwork throughout, Dulux Trade on a utility room or in a rental property, and Edward Bulmer on the limewashed walls of a nineteenth-century basement.
Our team is familiar with all of these brands and can advise on the right choice for your specific circumstances. If you'd like a recommendation before your project begins, we're always happy to discuss it as part of a site visit.