Just like the evolving world of fashion trends, interior paints have followed the same paths and are constantly evolving as fast as colours and fabrics change on the catwalk. Interior paint colours travel on a three-year cycle, with colour experts watching fashion trends around the world to predict future cycles.

Deen O’Brien, group marketing manager at Wattyl, says in the 60s and 70s, colours were vibrant. “You had that immense explosion of fashion, you had the American cultural revolution of free love, Woodstock — all of those things fed into colour, which fed into paint.”

Since the 80s era of neon and teased hair, interior paints have gone through retro and loud colours. Now colours have settled down and are more earthy muted tones such as taupe and puttee. “There are lots of greys and more drabber greens and there’s still always builder’s beige — it’s the safe bet for people who aren’t adventurous with colour,” O’Brien says.

Not only have colours changed, but also the variety of colours has increased. Dulux now has over 50,000 colours on its database. “Back then, the ability to tint paints into many different colours was much more limited than it is today. So now we’ve got very sophisticated tint systems and we’ve got very accurate tint systems,” says Ken Virtue, business manager at Dulux.

One of the main changes to interior paints has been the conversion of solvent-based paints, to turpentine-based paints, to water-based paints as focus has shifted in the wider community to sustainability. In the interior paints sector, this has meant an emphasis on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — 40 years ago, lead had a heavy presence in interior paint. In the early 90s, Dulux introduced a low VOC paint. The latest in its green range is EnvirO2, which emits less than 5g per litre of VOCs and is 100 per cent greenhouse neutral.

Wattyl has developed a low VOC paint in conjunction with BASF, which is 99.7 per cent VOC free in untinted paint products. Ammonia has also been removed to such a low level that there is no ammonia odour and no vapour to sting the eyes and nose.

Other technological changes have been in the washability of paints. O’Brien says in the early 70s, Wattyl was the first company to look at the use of teflon in interior paint. It then produced a formulation that provided a new stain resistance, but most technological focus has been on sustainability. “In the 70s and 80s, you got far better washability and the lack of burnishing. Over the 90s and into today, it’s been more down this environmental path of reducing organic volatile compounds and then almost eliminating them, working on AEPOs, which is a synthetic chemical compound which is found in paint,” he says.

Wallpaper was a popular product throughout the late 70s until the early 80s. O’Brien says this changed as the application of wallpaper became problematic and the quality of paint improved. Also, wallpaper became an expensive product. As soon as the trend started to disappear, people reverted back to decorating walls with paint and other materials such as stone and timber.

Feature walls have also had an impact on the interior paint industry. It first started to appear in the 80s, with Virtue saying he has seen it gain in prevalence in the past six to eight years. It meant manufacturers began selling large amounts of effects paint, such as suedes and metallics. Virtue says people were generally using a deeper, brighter colour to make a wall a feature. “On Dulux’s colour cards we would have shown a wall around a fireplace, or the main wall of the lounge room as you walk into a dwelling would be a feature wall that had been highlighted in a deeper and brighter colour. Not necessarily a flashy colour, but a deep claret colour with off white walls to give the room some depth and warmth.”

There has also been a shift in the past 15 years in the texture of paints to low sheen paints. Virtue says the majority of paint Dulux sells is low sheen in its gloss level for broadwall areas, but the majority of ceilings are still painted dead flat. Then satin paint was introduced into the market. “Part of what’s happened in the last 40 years in terms of technological developments is the ability to get very consistent gloss levels in a manufacturing process,” Virtue says.

Commercial interior paint has also seen major changes, mainly in the areas of sustainability and application. Commercial painters used to apply paint with a brush. Now they have access to spray equipment which applies paint much faster and more efficiently.

“Things like the acrylic enamels for the trim — that was really driven by the trade because what they wanted was an all water system. So wash-up was better, you could go in and go out and you could paint the broadwall and kitchen and bathroom and laundry, which were your wet areas, with one paint. It really has driven the way in which the industry at large has become coatings conscious,” O’Brien says.

In the coming years Virtue expects there will be continuing demand for more environmentally friendly products. “We’re continually working on the technology to both improve the application and the finish of paints. We’re seeing things [reduce] like not only the washability of paint, but the hardness of paint, the drying time and the recoating time, so we just keep polishing the apple so that products continually improve.”