Dulux kitchen paint: what Easycare Kitchen does, and which Dulux paint goes where in a UK kitchen

Dulux's kitchen paint is Dulux Easycare Kitchen Matt: a water-based matt emulsion for kitchen walls and ceilings with what Dulux calls a "Grease Proof formulation" that "resists everyday cooking stains" and is "washable without the colour fading". It covers up to 13 m² per litre, goes on in two coats with 5 hours between them, and comes in 2.5 litre tins in a ready-mixed range of 35 shades, or in any Dulux colour mixed to order. It is a wall paint, not a cupboard paint: for kitchen units, Dulux's current choice is Simply Refresh Multi Surface Eggshell, which goes straight onto melamine and MDF, or Quick Dry Satinwood over a primer.

Every specification below was read on dulux.co.uk and in the AkzoNobel technical data sheet in October 2026. Dulux publishes performance claims for Easycare Kitchen but no BS EN 13300 wet scrub class, and this guide says so rather than guessing one. If you are still choosing a colour rather than a product, our kitchen paint colours guide works through shades by kitchen style.

What Dulux Easycare Kitchen Matt actually is

Dulux describes Easycare Kitchen as "an exceptionally tough grease resistant paint" on its UK product page. The fuller numbers are in the technical data sheet AkzoNobel issued in September 2025 for its Dulux Ireland site, which covers the same product. Where the two differ, the UK page is the one to follow in Britain.

Two practical readings follow. First, the recoat time: the UK page asks for 5 hours between coats, the data sheet allows 2 to 4. In a cool British kitchen in winter, wait the 5 hours. Second, the water resistance line: the sheet says the paint resists "the levels of atmospheric humidity present in normal interior environments", "will withstand repeated washing" and is "suitable for use in kitchens", but not where there is "prolonged condensation". A kitchen whose walls run with water every time the pasta boils has a ventilation problem first and a paint problem second (see the Approved Document F section below).

Is Easycare Kitchen washable? What BS EN 13300 tells you

BS EN 13300 is the standard that classifies water-based paints for interior walls and ceilings. BSI lists the 2001 edition as withdrawn on 8 December 2022, when the revised edition replaced it. The figure most people look for is wet scrub resistance: as the German manufacturer Brillux explains in its guide to the EN 13300 classes, it is divided into five classes, with Class 1 the most resistant and Class 5 the least. The revised standard also introduced a "cleanability" criterion in 2023, without a class scale.

Dulux does not quote an EN 13300 class for Easycare Kitchen on the UK product page or in the data sheet. What it does publish are functional claims: grease proof, stain resistant, washable without fading, and able to withstand repeated washing. That is not the same as a laboratory class, and it is worth knowing when you compare it with a trade paint that prints "Class 1" on the tin. For a home kitchen, though, the claim that matters is the grease one: a splash that soaks into an ordinary matt emulsion is hard to lift, and scrubbing a matt wall hard enough to remove it tends to leave a polished patch. Easycare Kitchen's grease proof formulation is Dulux's answer for the wall near the hob.

Easycare Kitchen against the other Dulux paints people use in kitchens

Most people searching for Dulux kitchen paint end up choosing between five products. The claims, coverage and timings below are copied from each product page on dulux.co.uk; the prices are the ones dulux.co.uk showed in October 2026, where the headline price on the page and the price in its size table sometimes differed, so both are given. Stores set their own prices.

Read across, the choice is simpler than the range suggests. Easycare Kitchen is the one for the cooking end of the room: the wall behind and beside the hob, above the worktops and around the bin. In a kitchen-diner, the dining end can take Washable & Tough in the same colour, since Dulux says any Dulux colour can be mixed into any of its Easycare ranges; both are matt, so the join between the two products should not show as a change of finish. Easycare Bathroom belongs in a utility room or a kitchen with a boiler cupboard and a drying rack, where steam is the problem rather than grease; our utility room paint guide covers that room in detail. If you are weighing Dulux against its main high-street rival, the Crown versus Dulux comparison sets the Easycare range against Crown's equivalents.

Kitchen cupboards: what Dulux makes for them

Easycare Kitchen is not a cupboard paint: the data sheet limits it to interior walls and ceilings. Dulux once sold a dedicated Cupboard Paint, and some retailers still list old stock, but its product page on dulux.co.uk no longer loads (it returned a "page not found" error in October 2026). That leaves two Dulux routes for kitchen units.

• Simply Refresh Multi Surface Eggshell is the shortcut. Dulux says it can be applied "directly onto bare or previously painted wood, metal, melamine and MDF surfaces without using a Primer first", in two coats at least 6 hours apart, and that it needs 7 days to cure fully. That last figure matters in a kitchen: rehang doors carefully and avoid scrubbing them for the first week.
• Primer plus Quick Dry Satinwood is the route in Dulux's own guide How to paint kitchen cupboards: remove handles, wash the doors with sugar soap or a strong detergent to remove grease, sand with fine paper (the guide says you can skip this on melamine or high gloss), apply a wood or melamine primer depending on the surface, then two coats with a light sanding between them.

As a rough guide to quantities, a run of 14 doors and drawer fronts averaging 0.4 m² each is 5.6 m² per coat on the fronts alone, or 11.2 m² for two coats. At the 10 m² per litre Dulux gives for Multi Surface, that is just over a litre, so two 750 ml tins, with more if you paint the backs and the carcass edges.

Dulux kitchen paint colours: the ready-mixed Easycare Kitchen range

The Easycare Kitchen product page carries a safety data sheet for each of 35 ready-mixed shades, which is the quickest way to see the off-the-shelf range. The page also says that any Dulux colour can be mixed into the Easycare ranges, so the list below is a shortcut, not a limit. The grouping by family is ours, made from the swatches.

Each colour page on dulux.co.uk suggests a white and a few partners, which is useful when the walls have to sit with existing units. Stonewashed Blue, the shade in the kitchen image in this guide, gets Chalk Dust as its "perfect white", Winters Sky and Frosted Steel as neutral partners, and Autumn Embrace and Apricot Crush as the "Designer's Choice". Overtly Olive is paired with White Cotton, and with Common Dormouse and New Meringue. Faded Indigo lists Stonewashed Blue as a tonal partner, so the two blues in the range can share a kitchen, one on the walls and the darker one on an island or a chimney breast. Natural Hessian and Timeless both get Icing Sugar as their white.

Kitchens are lit by a mix of daylight, under-cabinet strips and pendants, and a mid blue or a sage can shift a long way between them. Paint a large sample card, tape it next to the worktop and the units, and look at it at breakfast and again after dark. Our guide to testing paint colours before you buy sets out how to do that without wasting testers.

Ventilation first: what Approved Document F expects in a kitchen

No paint survives a kitchen that cannot get rid of its steam. In England, Approved Document F (Volume 1, dwellings) sets the minimum intermittent extract rate for a kitchen at 30 litres per second where a cooker hood extracts to the outside, and 60 litres per second where there is no cooker hood or the hood only recirculates. When building work is carried out in a kitchen, existing fans and outside-venting cooker hoods "should be retained or replaced", and an extractor or cooker hood replaced on the existing cabling does not need to be notified to building control. A 2026 edition has been published for use from 24 March 2027 and keeps the same two kitchen rates. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own building regulations.

Why it matters for paint: the Easycare Kitchen data sheet rules out surfaces with "prolonged condensation", and the Easycare Bathroom page asks for 24 hours before the paint is subjected to condensation at all. A recirculating hood over a gas hob, a window that never opens and a tumble dryer in the corner will defeat any wall finish. Fix the extraction, then paint.

How much Easycare Kitchen do you need?

A worked example for a typical British kitchen of 3.0 by 3.5 metres with a 2.4 metre ceiling. The perimeter is 13 metres, so the walls are 31.2 m² gross. Units, tiles, the window and the door usually hide about half of that, which leaves roughly 15 m² of visible wall.

Thirteen square metres per litre is a maximum, and Dulux warns that a strong colour change "may" need more coats. If you are going from white to Faded Indigo, or covering a dark red, plan for a third coat. On new plaster or bare surfaces, the data sheet asks for a sealing coat of Easycare Kitchen thinned with up to 1 part clean water to 10 parts paint, which counts as an extra coat on those areas when you work out quantities. If you would rather hand the job to a decorator, the interior decorator cost guide gives UK day rates and what a kitchen usually costs.

Painting a kitchen with Easycare Kitchen, step by step

The steps below follow Dulux's own instructions on the product page and in the data sheet, in the order a kitchen needs them.

1. Clear and protect. Empty the worktops, cover the hob and sink, and mask tiles and unit edges.
2. Degrease. Dulux asks for a surface that is "clean (no dirt or grease) and dry". In a kitchen that means washing the walls, especially near the hob, and rinsing with clean water. Remove loose or flaking paint and fill defects.
3. Check for old lead paint. The data sheet asks for special precautions when preparing pre-1990s paint surfaces over wood and metal, which may contain lead. Do not dry-sand old woodwork without checking first.
4. Seal new or bare plaster with the thinned first coat described above.
5. Apply two coats by brush or roller, leaving 5 hours between them. Do not paint in very damp or humid conditions, or below 7°C. If you use more than one tin, Dulux suggests mixing them together in a large container or finishing in a corner before starting a new one.
6. Leave the radiator alone. The data sheet says Easycare Kitchen is not suitable for heated surfaces; use a radiator-rated product such as Simply Refresh Multi Surface, which Dulux lists for radiators.
7. Clean up responsibly. Dulux asks you to wash brushes and rollers in a container rather than under a running tap, and never to pour paint or wash water down the drain.

Bathrooms follow the same logic with a different product: the moisture-resistant bathroom paint guide covers Easycare Bathroom and its competitors. For the whole kitchen, walls and units together, the interior paint visualiser repaints your own photo, so you can see Easycare Kitchen colours against your worktop before you open a tin.

Sources and references

• Dulux UK, Dulux Easycare Kitchen Matt product page: description, finish, coverage, coats and recoat time, application advice, ready-mixed colours, mixing into Easycare ranges, prices.
• AkzoNobel, Dulux Easycare Kitchen technical data sheet (issued 09/25, Dulux Ireland): sheen, uses, film properties, drying times, minimum temperature, thinning for bare surfaces, VOC.
• Dulux UK, product pages for Easycare Washable & Tough Matt, Easycare Bathroom Soft Sheen, Simply Refresh Multi Surface Eggshell and Quick Dry Satinwood: claims, coverage, drying and curing times, sizes, prices.
• Dulux UK, How to paint kitchen cupboards, and colour pages for Stonewashed Blue, Overtly Olive and Faded Indigo: cupboard method and colour pairings.
• BSI Knowledge, BS EN 13300, water-borne coating materials for interior walls and ceilings: classification: scope of the standard and withdrawal date of the 2001 edition.
• Brillux, EN 13300 standard: the five wet abrasion classes and the cleanability criterion added in 2023.
• UK Government, Ventilation: Approved Document F, Volume 1 (dwellings), Table 1.1 and paragraphs 3.30 to 3.32: kitchen extract rates and kitchen refurbishment.