Why has my matt emulsion gone shiny in patches?
Shiny patches on matt paint are burnishing — the surface has been polished by rubbing. It is a durability limit of matt paint rather than a fault in the tin.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 20 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Matt emulsion has a rough microscopic surface, which is what makes it look flat. Rubbing it — cleaning, brushing past it, a chair back, a dog — flattens that texture and it reflects light instead. It cannot be cleaned off or polished out, because the shine is the damage. Repainting is the only repair.
This turns up most in hallways, stairwells and behind furniture, and people usually blame the paint or assume something greasy has been rubbed on the wall. It is neither. It is the trade-off matt paint makes: the flatter the finish, the more fragile the surface texture that produces it.
Step by step
- Confirm it is burnishing rather than a stain.Burnishing appears exactly where things touch the wall, is smooth to the fingertip, and changes appearance as you move your head. A greasy mark looks the same from every angle and often has a defined edge.
- Stop trying to clean it.This is the important step. Scrubbing a burnished patch makes it larger and shinier, because scrubbing is what caused it. Many people arrive at a badly marked wall by trying to fix a small one.
- Wash gently if there is genuine dirt as well.A barely damp cloth with no pressure and no detergent. Blot rather than rub. Accept that the shine will not improve.
- Repaint the whole wall, not the patch.A touched-in area on matt emulsion almost always shows, because the new paint has a different sheen and often a slightly different colour. Corner to corner is the only reliable repair.
- Choose a more durable finish where things touch the wall.Hallways, stairwells, kitchens and children's rooms are better served by a scrubbable matt or a soft sheen designed to be washed. They are marginally less flat and dramatically more robust.
- Deal with the cause where you can.A chair rail, moving furniture a few centimetres off the wall, or a rug that stops the vacuum head hitting the skirting will each prevent the same patch reappearing.
Tips
- Keep a labelled sample of the wall colour and finish. The repaint is much easier when you are not colour-matching from memory.
- Behind a sofa is the classic location, and moving it two centimetres forward solves it permanently.
Questions people ask
Can I take the shine off with fine abrasive?
No. Abrading changes the texture again and leaves a visible flat spot with a different sheen from both the shiny patch and the surrounding wall.
Is this a sign of cheap paint?
Not necessarily. All true matt emulsions burnish to some degree because the flatness comes from surface texture. Paints sold as washable or scrubbable resist it by being slightly less matt.