10 Fun Facts You Didn’t Know about Olympic Paint

Olympic Paint & Stains have existed since 1938. The company has had a long relationship with American homeowners, producing high quality, trusted paint and stain products. Currently in their 80th year of providing consumers with products that help projects turn out right, they are a welcomed fixture in the world of colorful paints. Here’s ten fun facts to celebrate the company’s eight decades of consistent, trend-setting products.

Olympic Paints come in more than 1,000 colors.

That’s including both exterior and interior paints and stains. The company organizes them in paint families on a color wheel to make it easier to compare options within your favorite colors. The color families are organized by Neutrals, Blues, Grays & Blacks, Greens, Aqua, Beiges, Off-Whites, Yellows, Reds, Oranges, and Purples. When you visit the Olympic website, you can browse through each of the color families. All the colors in each family are placed in a colorful grid. You simply use your mouse to hover over the colors you like. Each square in the grid shows the name of a different color of paint. Each page pairs the colors with neutrals that complement them. You can also sign up to save your favorites in one place.

Olympic Paints & Stains is owned by PPG Industries.

PPG was founded in 1883. It was originally known as Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. The company owned 10 plate glass plants by 1900 and was the United State’s second largest paint producer. Today, it is a multibillion-dollar company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide.

Several Olympic paint color names have a decidedly musical flair.

Music and art often go hand in hand, and Olympic has a talent for connecting passionate music and art together in some unexpected names. If you’re looking for purples, consider Violet Echo, Jam Session, or the elegant Silver Bells. If orange is more your style, have a look at Tanglewood or Coral Serenade. If you like your music salsa or tango, then Fiesta might just be your favorite red. Classicists might enjoy a yellow like Upbeat or Allegro. If jazz is truly your thing, you might like Blues Lullaby or Symphony of Blue. And for every other genre under the sun or the moon, Harmonious, Jitterbug, Hip Hop, Boogie Blast and Clair de Lune are great choices.

There are 12 Most Popular Olympic red paint colors.

Though red is certainly a dramatic, passionate, and confident color, it can be used in any room. It has a reputation for taking over, because it tends to take over a space. But it is also great for creating an accent area or for gathering people together for conversation or meals. It works wonders in dining rooms and kitchens, and that may be why many of the most popular reds are named for food and drink. Pizza Pie, Burgundy Wine, Bordeaux, Teaberry Blossom, Red Red Wine, Apple-a-Day and Red Gumball are seven of the reds and Burning Bush, Brick Dust, Copper Beech, Barn Door, and Ruby Lips round up the last five of the favorite Olympic reds.

The PPG global color team decides Olympic paint colors based on trends from around the world.

The PPG global team is comprised of color experts from the company and throughout the industries PPG serves. They come from six businesses which serve three global regions. Their goal is to research fashion, architecture and design, and automotive trends. They collect insights and knowledge about cultural and regional influences and examine how lifestyles are influencing color preferences. Because their information is sourced globally and considered collaboratively, they forecast trends to develop better colors, product innovations, and guidance to help consumers to understand, organize and use colors.

Olympic One interior paint was once advertised as able to withstand over 1500 scrubs.

The durable paint and primer was engineered to be high performance paint from the very beginning. It’s available in a variety of sheens including Flat, Satin, Eggshell, and Semi-Gloss. It is a multi-purpose paint that can be used for walls and trim in any room in the house. It’s also available in more than 1800 Olympic colors.

Olympic Paint’s 2018 Color of the Year is Black Magic.

The news about the striking new color was unveiled in a June 2017 PPG press release. The PPG Senior Color Marketing Manager, Dee Schlotter described the new paint color as an option for people who seek privacy and comforting colors that give them an “escape’ from hectic daily life. Black Magic OL116 is designed to complement trending colors in the gray range. It is a new exterior hue which is recommended for statement accents on trim, front doors, exposed shelving and kitchen cabinets. The global PPG color experts selected the color after their customary analysis of current events and social trends.

The Olympic Stain Products brand began as Creo-Dipt in 1925.

Creo-Dipt Stained Shingles Company manufactured oil stain for pre-stained shingles and shakes. The solid color oil stain products offered leading edge protective coatings for machine coaters. It was in 1950 when Creo-Dipt became Olympic Stain Products. In 1989 PPG acquired Olympic Stain Products.

PPG announced that LOWE’s will discontinue selling Olympic brand paints and stain products effective mid-2018. Home Depot and PPG create a new liaison.

Olympic has been rated among the top paint brands in the United States since 1938. The Olympic brand has a strong and diverse portfolio of paint and stain products which it will expand to new distribution points after a long-standing and successful relationship with Lowes. Lowe’s sales of PPG products in the United States represent less than $300 million of annual sales by PPG. But PPG’s shares slid 2% after the disappointing Lowe’s decision. Home Depot’s created a new, potentially lucrative deal with PPG.

Olympic Smartguard is PPG’s newest innovation for 2018.

The new product is a super-concentrated spray-on application which is designed to dry within an hour after application. The product doesn’t brush on, comes in a convenient pouch, is less time-consuming that traditional products and still produces a water-resistant seal which will last a long time. It is part of the deal with Home Depot and Spring 2018 sales of the new product are planned to reach homeowners in time for their newest projects.