The finishes guide
A wall finish is two things at once: how thick it goes on, and what it is made of.
The trade's names mix the two, which is why they are so easy to get lost in. "Paint" and "render" only say the thickness — not what is inside. "Lime" and "cement" only say the material — not whether it goes on with a brush or a blade. The two cross freely: there is a lime paint and there is a lime render, just as there is a cement render — and that one is called béton ciré.
From 0.01 mm to 6 mm, and that is the whole difference between a colour and a material. At its thinnest, a lime wash lets the stone read through. A badigeon covers but keeps the grain of the wall. A render, laid off the blade, makes its own relief. A stucco, compressed until the surface closes, ends up giving light back. The thicker it goes on, the more the finish replaces the wall instead of tinting it.
The binder is what holds the mix together: lime, cement, gypsum, clay, silicate, casein, flour or acrylic resin. Nobody sees it, and yet it is what decides whether the wall breathes, whether it takes water, whether it lasts outside and for how long. Two finishes of the same thickness with different binders have almost nothing in common.
The short version
Once the two questions are pulled apart, the rest follows on its own: thickness decides what you see, and the material decides what the wall will stand.
Here is where the confusion comes from. The trade hands you six words — badigeon, render, stucco, tadelakt, plaster, paint — and they are not answering the same question: three name a thickness, two name a material, and "render" names a thickness while saying nothing about what is in it. So every shop name rewrites as a pair, thickness + material — and at that point it all falls into place:
The scale is logarithmic: each mark is ten times the one before. For reference, a sheet of paper is 0.1 mm, a bank card 0.8 mm and a 1 € coin 2.3 mm.
Brushed, one to three tenths of a millimetre, water and slaked lime. It is not filed with the paints because the shop selling it is a lime shop — not because it is something else.
Trowelled at two or three millimetres, exactly like a lime render. What separates them is the binder — cement and polymer against lime — not the thickness.
A lime stucco compressed with a river stone, then rubbed with black soap — and it is the soap, not the lime, that makes it waterproof. So "tadelakt effect" means a render that looks like it without going through the soap: the look, but not the waterproofing.
Two answers, and only one is mineral. Tadelakt holds because it is saponified; béton ciré holds because it is sealed, and under a shower it additionally wants a waterproofing system beneath it. Everything else on this page — badigeon, render, stucco, marmorino — takes a bathroom's steam and not the jet.
Outside, the binder decides and the frost gives the verdict. Hydraulic lime (NHL) hardens under water where air lime (CL) only sets in air: that is the dividing line. Silicate is the most durable mineral because it has no film to flake.
Almost nothing goes on a floor, and that is not an omission: a wall is not walked on. Béton ciré is made for it. Tadelakt goes there too — it has been the floor of hammams forever — but at the price of the upkeep that comes with it.
Then do not choose a fine lime or a clay. A lime render, a marmorino or a silicate ask for nothing for decades; a badigeon is redone, a tadelakt is soaped, a béton ciré is re-waxed.
All fourteen, in order: thinnest first, thickest last. Push through them — and to go into a family, each one now has its own page.
Lime washAir lime (CL) · 0.02–0.05 mm
Lime at its most diluted — a coloured water that patinates without covering, leaving the stone or the render legible through it.
A very thin white wash over rubble, Isle of Skye: every stone still reads through the coat.
Photo Richard Dorrell · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
BadigeonAir lime (CL) · 0.1–0.3 mm
A lime paint, whatever its name suggests: brushed on thin, it keeps the grain of the wall and moves with the light.
A cottage of 1600 in Ixworth, painted the traditional Suffolk pink of the county’s limewashes: the colour is in the coat, and the relief of the plaster still reads through it.
Photo Sophie Curtis · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
PaintAir lime (CL) · 0.1–0.2 mm
The same material as a badigeon, sold ready-mixed and rolled on: more opaque, more even, and less alive.
Mykonos: facades whitened again every year, in a tradition that was the tradition of lime.
Photo Julian Lupyan · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
PaintPotassium silicate · 0.1–0.2 mm
The mineral paint that makes no film: it bonds chemically into a mineral substrate and becomes part of the wall.
A Pellegrini mural in Basel, painted in Keim mineral colours in 1921–1923 and still outdoors.
Photo EinDao · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
PaintCasein · 0.08–0.15 mm
The old distemper — a milk paint, velvety and deeply matt, and strictly for dry rooms.
A panel of Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze at the Vienna Secession, painted in casein on plaster: matte, with a depth a film does not have.
Photo Gustav Klimt · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
PaintFlour · 0.1–0.3 mm
Swedish paint: a cooked flour porridge, made for exterior timber — cladding, shutters, outbuildings.
PaintAcrylic resin · 0.08–0.15 mm
The default paint, and this page’s counter-example: a resin film that covers, washes — and closes the wall.
A covering paint rolled onto brick: the relief stays, but the colour is the film’s.
Photo Michael Cory · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
RenderHydraulic lime (NHL) · 1–3 mm
A material rather than a colour: one to three millimetres trowelled on, giving the wall a relief and a depth no paint imitates.
A lime-plastered wall on Tinos at sunset: the raking light picks out every pass of the hand left in the material.
Photo Jules Verne Times Two · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
RenderClay · 1–3 mm
The render that regulates humidity best — and the one that least tolerates being wetted.
A decorative render of raw earth and grain husks: the fibre stays visible in the material, and it is the fibre that makes the pattern.
Photo Loïc ROSO · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
RenderGypsum · 1–5 mm
The smoothest and whitest of interior renders, and no part of any wet room.
A plasterer laying the finish coat on an inside wall, with trowel and hawk.
Photo Adrian Pingstone · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
RenderCement + resin · 2–3 mm
A mineral render as one continuous surface with no joint anywhere — the only finish here that runs from floor to wall in a single material.
Béton ciré in a bathroom: walls and ledge in one continuous surface, without a joint, around a niche of pebbles.
Photo Alex van Olst · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
StuccoAir lime (CL) · 1–2 mm
The everyday Venetian stucco: two coats compressed with the blade, closing the surface without taking it to a shine.
A whole wall in marmorino: the tinted lime keeps the cloudy track of the blade.
Photo Kubko666 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
StuccoAir lime (CL) · 0.5–1 mm
The same gesture taken to a polish: a very fine marble flour, worked with the iron until the gloss of marble comes up.
Stucco lustro lining the Small Ballroom of Dresden’s Residenzschloss: marble that is not marble, polished until it throws the chandelier back.
Photo SchiDD · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
StuccoHydraulic lime (NHL) · 3–6 mm
The one lime finish that takes running water — and it is the soap, not the lime, that makes it waterproof. The floor of hammams for centuries, walls and floors alike.
Tadelakt being polished with a stone: it is this burnishing, pass after pass, that closes the lime and gives it its sheen.
Photo Eigenheym · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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| Thickness | Water | Outside | Floor | Upkeep | Vapour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eau-forteLime wash | 0.02–0.05 mm | Keep it dry | Exposed | Walls only | Regular care | Vapour-open |
| Badigeon de chauxBadigeon | 0.1–0.3 mm | Steam only | Exposed | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| Peinture à la chauxPaint | 0.1–0.2 mm | Steam only | Sheltered | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| Peinture au silicatePaint | 0.1–0.2 mm | Splashes | Exposed | Walls only | Almost none | Vapour-open |
| Peinture à la caséinePaint | 0.08–0.15 mm | Keep it dry | Indoors | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| Peinture à la farinePaint | 0.1–0.3 mm | Keep it dry | Exposed | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| Peinture acryliquePaint | 0.08–0.15 mm | Splashes | Exposed | Walls only | Almost none | Closes the wall |
| Enduit à la chauxRender | 1–3 mm | Steam only | Exposed | Walls only | Almost none | Vapour-open |
| Enduit à l'argileRender | 1–3 mm | Keep it dry | Indoors | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| PlâtreRender | 1–5 mm | Keep it dry | Indoors | Walls only | Almost none | Vapour-open |
| Béton ciréRender | 2–3 mm | Shower | Exposed | Floor | Periodic | Closes the wall |
| MarmorinoStucco | 1–2 mm | Steam only | Exposed | Walls only | Almost none | Vapour-open |
| Stuc vénitienStucco | 0.5–1 mm | Splashes | Indoors | Walls only | Periodic | Vapour-open |
| TadelaktStucco | 3–6 mm | Shower | Sheltered | Light floor | Regular care | Vapour-open |
An old wall is not sealed and never had to be: damp rising from the ground or crossing the masonry evaporates through the surface. A mineral finish — lime, silicate, gypsum, clay — lets that vapour through; an acrylic film holds it back. The result is not a stain but a detachment: water gathers behind the film, freezes, and takes the render with it. It is also why these finishes go with a terracotta floor rather than against one — an unglazed tomette breathes, and the lime above it does the same thing.
Producers do not use these words the same way, and the catalogue carries the marks of it. Three cases where the name is not enough:
Compositions and ratios from trade references and the producers' own data sheets. The illustrations are drawn: what separates these finishes is a thickness and a reflection, which few photographs show.