How to achieve mirror-like gold colours using NeoChrome paint and gold pigments

Thanks to the new Neochrome paint and the Candy colourants from the Precious Metals range, it is possible to achieve high-quality decorative finishes with a look:

* Satin nickel	* Bright nickel	*Polished metal
* Mirrored chrome	* Bright gold, pale gold, warm gold	* Copper
* Rose gold	* Bronze	* all the vivid colors

For example, a company specialising in the manufacture of metal fittings and decorative components for furniture, which already has a painting/lacquering facility complete with a spray booth and spray guns, wishes to develop in-house finishing capabilities for its prototypes, commercial samples and small batches, as well as its mass-produced parts, in order to minimise the need to use subcontractors for electroplating.

Materials that can be painted include, for example, metals such as Zamak or brass, plastics such as PVC or ABS, 3D-printed objects, wood, etc.:
StardustColors paint systems offer an effective and relatively easy-to-apply solution.
To achieve this type of result, we offer:
► Primers or adhesion promoters suited to each material.
► The most suitable nickel, chrome and gold effect paints.
► Protective ceramic, gloss, satin and matt topcoats

Applicable to spray guns
Available as a complete kit
Both in small packs for testing purposes and at special rates for industrial production.

If you wish to reproduce or imitate a metallic finish resembling precious metals such as gold or bronze, or even other polished metals, then it is worth adding a mirror or polished effect. This requires a finish free of pearlescent agents and metallic pigments, with completely invisible pigmentation.

It is therefore possible to achieve a gold ingot finish, or even a gold mirror finish, by first applying a mirror-finish chrome coating. This finish must be particularly bright and pure. This can be achieved using just two products

► chemical silver plating, which produces a silver mirror finish. This is a complex process that we offer here, but which we will not cover in this article
► the new Neochrome paint
Since its launch in 2025, this new paint has been increasingly used by interior design professionals, thanks to its exceptional qualities and relative ease of application

The various transparent pigments used to obtain the gold metallic effects

Neochrome paint produces a very light, highly reflective metallic finish, and it is easy to coat it with a varnish to which a transparent ‘Candy’-type colourant has been added
The simplest way to achieve a mirror-finish gold effect is to add a yellow colourant, such as Candy Yellow 21 (Oxide Yellow), which is the main colourant alongside Candy Lemon Yellow 20 (pure, light yellow).

To obtain aged or natural colours

► Add Magenta 162 pink and a little black 01
There are many shades of gold, or even bronze, as well as new, fashionable colours such as rose gold. It is possible to achieve more natural-looking gold shades by mixing Candy colourants into the varnish applied over the Neochrome paint.

In the video above, we carried out application tests mainly using Neochrome paint topped with a varnish that we tinted with just 2 per cent Stardust transparent colourant

The colour intensity increases with each layer; in other words, you can adjust both the ink concentration and, preferably, the number of layers. This allows you to control the depth and intensity of the colour by adding layers, for example to go from a pale gold to a very yellow gold.

Polished gold-coloured metal finish, satin-finish nickel

It is also possible to achieve some very interesting polished metal effects over Neochrome paint by using a satin-finish varnish rather than a gloss one. When combined with the addition of colourants for precious metal effects, it is possible to achieve a wide range of shades and subtle finishes.