Moving from Behr Marquee Satin to Sherwin-Williams
Scenario. A living room was painted in Behr Marquee Satin and the next project is at a Sherwin-Williams store. Unlike the other worked examples, this one has no tidy ending, and that is the point: it shows what an honest answer looks like when the published data does not contain one.
1. The starting requirement
Match a Satin sheen that is known only by its data sheet: Marquee Satin is published at 15–25 at 60°, and at no other angle.
2. What Sherwin-Williams publishes
| Finish | Published range | Comparable with Marquee Satin (60°)? |
|---|---|---|
| Emerald Flat | 0–4 at 85° | No (published at 85° only) |
| Emerald Matte | 0–5 at 60° · 4–8 at 85° | Yes |
| Emerald Satin | 10–20 at 85° | No (published at 85° only) |
| Emerald Semi-Gloss | 35–45 at 60° | Yes |
| Duration Home Flat | 0–5 at 60° · 1–5 at 85° | Yes |
| Duration Home Matte | 2–7 at 85° | No (published at 85° only) |
| Duration Home Satin | 15–20 at 85° | No (published at 85° only) |
| Duration Home Semi-Gloss | 35–45 at 60° | Yes |
Look at the pattern: at 60° Sherwin-Williams publishes only flat-end finishes (Emerald Matte, Duration Home Flat) and its two Semi-Glosses. Its mid-ladder finishes, the Emerald and Duration Home Satin among them, are published at 85°. The place where Behr's Satin sits is a hole in Sherwin-Williams's 60° data.
3. The same-angle restriction
Marquee Satin has only a 60° figure, so only the 4 Sherwin-Williams finishes with a 60° figure can be compared; 4 cannot. The tempting shortcut is to bridge the gap: find a finish published at both angles and use it to translate. GlossAtlas does not, because that would be an angle conversion in disguise: a relationship measured on one finish and then assumed to hold for another. The dataset has no basis for it.
4. The candidates
| Finish | 60° range | Relationship to Marquee Satin |
|---|---|---|
| Duration Home Flat | 0–5 | Nearest range, no overlap 10 gloss units flatter at the nearest edge — closest published match (tied) |
| Emerald Matte | 0–5 | Nearest range, no overlap 10 gloss units flatter at the nearest edge — closest published match (tied) |
| Emerald Semi-Gloss | 35–45 | Nearest range, no overlap 10 gloss units glossier at the nearest edge — closest published match (tied) |
| Duration Home Semi-Gloss | 35–45 | Nearest range, no overlap 10 gloss units glossier at the nearest edge — closest published match (tied) |
Not comparable here: Emerald Flat (published at 85° only), Emerald Satin (published at 85° only), Duration Home Matte (published at 85° only), Duration Home Satin (published at 85° only). Sherwin-Williams did not publish 60° figures for them, so these are left out rather than converted.
5. The calculation
Calculation at 60°: Marquee Satin 15–25 against Duration Home Flat 0–5
- Shared span: none (the ranges are 10 gloss units apart).
- Gap: 10, flatter than Marquee Satin.
- The gap is within the 15-unit limit, so this is reported as the nearest range with no overlap.
Calculation at 60°: Marquee Satin 15–25 against Emerald Semi-Gloss 35–45
- Shared span: none (the ranges are 10 gloss units apart).
- Gap: 10, glossier than Marquee Satin.
- The gap is within the 15-unit limit, so this is reported as the nearest range with no overlap.
The two directions are symmetric: Marquee Satin's lower bound (15) is 10 above the top of the flat-end ranges (5), and its upper bound (25) is 10 below the bottom of the Semi-Gloss ranges (35). The engine ranks them equally, so all 4 are named, and it does not break the tie with a number it does not have.
6. The result
Low confidence Nearest range, no overlap: 10 gloss units flatter (Duration Home Flat, Emerald Matte) or 10 gloss units glossier (Emerald Semi-Gloss, Duration Home Semi-Gloss). Neither is a match in the sense the other examples are.
The result is not "Sherwin-Williams has nothing like it". It is "the numbers Sherwin-Williams published at 60° have nothing like it". Sherwin-Williams's Satin finishes exist and are published at 85°, a scale Marquee Satin does not share.
7. The same finish against the other brands
Whether a clean answer exists depends on how the target brand chose to publish, not on the paint. From the same starting point:
| Other brand | Result | Closest published range |
|---|---|---|
| Sherwin-Williams | Nearest range, no overlap | Duration Home Flat 0–5 (10 gloss units flatter); Emerald Matte 0–5 (10 gloss units flatter); Emerald Semi-Gloss 35–45 (10 gloss units glossier); Duration Home Semi-Gloss 35–45 (10 gloss units glossier) at 60° |
| Benjamin Moore | Strong overlap (exactly at the 50% threshold) | Regal Select Pearl 20–30 at 60° |
| Valspar | Strong overlap (exactly at the 50% threshold) | Signature Satin 20–30 at 60° |
8. What you would do
- Do not treat the tie as a recommendation of either end. Ten units is the width of a whole Satin range.
- Compare physically. The data narrows the field to "somewhere between Sherwin-Williams's flattest and glossiest ranges", which a sample in the room can resolve and a spreadsheet cannot.
- If a Sherwin-Williams representative or its technical documentation gives a 60° figure for the Satin you are considering, you would have the missing same-angle number. Until then, no same-angle comparison exists to be made.
9. Limitations
- The result says the dataset has no clean answer. It does not say none exists.
- Sherwin-Williams has two lines in the dataset, which is why the tie has four members rather than two.
- Gloss only; neither sheet states the tint base the range applies to. See how much of the aisle can be compared for how often this happens.