Most of the questions we get about paint are really about the same thing: which tin goes on which wall. A Singapore flat needs four or five different products to be painted properly, and the reason a cheap job fails early is usually that one product was used everywhere.
Here is what each type does, where it belongs, and what it costs in a 20-litre tin.
Sealer and primer
Sealer is not paint. It is the coat that goes on first so the paint on top has something to grip. Bare plaster, a resale wall with several old coats, and anything previously glossed all need it. New BTO plaster usually does not.
Skip it on a resale flat and the topcoat peels in sheets within eighteen months. On a quote it shows up as a separate line, around $250 to $350 for a whole flat. That line is the one a cheap quote leaves out.
Standard interior emulsion
This is the everyday wall paint. Nippon Matex and Raffles R.COAT sit here. It is matt, it is cheap, and it hides small imperfections well because a flat finish scatters light. It also marks easily and cannot be wiped without burnishing a patch.
Use it on ceilings and on bedroom walls that nothing touches. A 20-litre tin is around $80 to $100.
Washable emulsion
The same paint with a harder binder, so a damp cloth takes marks off without leaving a shiny spot. Nippon Vinilex 5000 and Raffles R.WASH are the common ones here. It has a slight sheen compared to standard matt.
Use it in hallways, living rooms, children's rooms, and the wall behind the sofa. A 20-litre tin is $160 to $200, and for most families it is the single upgrade worth paying for.
Odourless and low-VOC
Chemically similar to washable emulsion but with the solvents that carry the smell taken out. Nippon Odour-less and Raffles R.BABY are the ones people ask for by name. You can sleep in a room the night it was painted.
Use it anywhere someone is pregnant, asthmatic or sensitive to smell, and in condos where the corridor is enclosed. Expect $230 to $280 a tin.
Anti-mould
A washable emulsion with a biocide in the film that stops spores colonising the surface. It resists mould for around five years in a bathroom. It does not remove moisture, so a wall that is wet from a leak will bloom through it regardless.
Use it on bathroom ceilings, service yards and the wall behind any wardrobe pushed against an external face. Across a whole flat the anti-mould specification adds about $350.
Gloss and enamel
Hard, wipeable and shiny, and it shows every flaw in the surface under it. It belongs on doors, door frames, skirting and window grilles rather than on walls. Water-based gloss has largely replaced oil-based for interiors because it does not yellow.
Exterior systems
Exterior paint is a system rather than a tin: an alkali-resistant sealer, then two coats of an exterior acrylic with UV stabilisers and a fungicide. Where the render has hairline cracks, an elastomeric coating bridges the movement that a standard acrylic will crack along again. Skipping the sealer is why an exterior needs redoing in three years instead of seven.
Limewash and mineral finishes
Slaked lime tinted with pigment. It soaks in rather than sitting on top, breathes, and gives a cloudy depth flat emulsion cannot imitate. It suits feature walls, older masonry and boundary walls with rising damp, and it marks in a hallway. Priced per square foot, from about $9, because the cost is in the brushwork.
Putting it together in a 3-room flat
Sealer if resale. Standard emulsion on the ceilings. Washable on the living room, hallway and any wall a hand reaches. Anti-mould on the bathroom ceiling and service yard. Gloss on the doors and frames. That is four products and it is what a fixed quote from $588 covers.