A Brief History of Paint

• Paint, for many years, was considered something extravagant and was too expensive for the common populace to use. Even in the early days, paint was made of a certain variety of ingredients which included pigment (the color of the paint, which includes the color white), and the binder (which was the part of the paint that held the pigment together); linseed oil was popular for many years as a binder. There was also an element known as a reducer, which was the chemical or material you had to use to clean paint off of brushes, hands, and other surfaces. For oil-based paints, the reducer was often turpentine, or some other variety of paint thinner.
  
  

World War II

• Oil-based paints had been the norm for centuries, with advances made in pigments and reducers, but with linseed oil mostly staying in its position as the bonding agent in the paint. During World War II, however, many experiments had been conducted with latex and the creations that could be made from rubber. In 1948, Glidden's Spread Stain was the first ever commercially marketed latex paint. It was based off of the styrene-butadiene compound that had been discovered during the government's latex research program. Demonstrations at hardware department and specialty stores were common, and the public was so impressed with this revolution that millions of gallons of the first latex paint were sold that year.
  
  

The Difference

• Traditional, oil-based paint is a tricky thing. Even when the chemicals are mixed together properly, and the paint is applied as it should be, it may take several coats, sometimes as many as five or six, to properly paint a single surface. The oil is difficult to work with, stains anything it touches, and has to be cleaned with noxious chemicals like turpentine. Latex paint contains the same pigments as oil-based paints, but instead uses latex polymer and resin, which can be reduced by water. Oil-based paint may take hours to begin drying due to the variety of chemicals and the presence of linseed oil, but latex paints can dry in as little as half an hour--as soon as the water evaporates. The evaporation of the water binds the paint together into a strong, pliable surface which can be easily wiped clean. The advantages of latex paint--time, less work for fewer coats, lower price, lack of fire hazard, ease of clean-up--have almost made oil paints a thing of the past.