Stupid question about paint

[Sherlock02]

Ok so this may be a really silly question.

About 4 years ago, I was looking for a nice soft grey paint and did the obligatory 20 samples. Eventually, after much searching, I found a fabulous paint called Dove Grey and Pale Dove Grey by Laura Ashley. (I know there are lots of view about grey paint but it looks lovely in my house!)

Fast forward to today and I need to refresh. I love this colour but LA is no longer around. However I had a half can of standard paint and brand new can of kitchen paint in the garage.

I opened the half can and despite stirring it was cream. I assumed because the can was open. However this morning I opened the sealed can (kitchen paint same colour) and it is also just cream. Is this a thing? Does paint lose its pigment over time? I'm 100% sure this was the colour on my walls.

If so, I'm now 6 samples in and can't find a nice grey. Aghhhh Anyone else had this colour and managed to find a colour recently thats similar? I am due a couple of Graham & Brown samples today so may fix this but just wondered.

Not sure about changing colour but paint definitely goes off so very possible. We painted one wall with a tin of paint that was two years old at most and had been properly sealed. Mixed it up and it went on great. However as it dried it developed the worst smell I've ever experienced. Sour milk would have been a welcome alternative. It was so bad! We went a few days with all windows and doors open to air it and it didn't fade at all. We read loads of info online and came to the conclusion that the only solution was to rip off the paper we'd painted on (it was textured/designed for painting) rather than try to seal and cover it which wouldn't guarantee the smell would go. Now we're forced to decorate the entire room. It was a lesson learned. Will never use old paint again if there's the tiniest reason to think it might have gone off!

Thanks for that. That sounds a right pain for you having done all the decorating. The whole point is to refreshen the rooms. I hadn't thought about that side.

Think I do need to find fresh paint then. I may have an alternative -Feather Grey by Homebase.

I will admit to being a bit of a paint snob and feel more expensive paint is more chalky but after 8 samples, this is the closest.

Best of luck with it 🤞 sure it'll look great. It's so difficult picking the right shade with so many choices.

I was very anti grey walls but ended up finding the LOVLIEST grey from Valspar (B&Q) which hasn't got a green tinge to it which I find a lot of greys have. It's called Moon Shadow. Get a sample though as the colour chip doesn't do it justice. Our friends also used it after seeing our house!

If you can take a sample of any of your your LA to somewhere that mixes paint like Leyland they may be able to scan the colour and mix it for you. Come to think of it - they may even have LA paint colours in their Library of colours. Little Greene used to have a much bigger range of colours called the The Big Book of Colour and they were able to mix it for me.

You can get Laura Ashley paint on eBay.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone.

I tried one last time with a couple of F&B testers-and found a very good match with "ammonite"

Just got to paint it now. Husband will moan it's expensive but as I do the decorating he can't really moan too much