The coatings market looks set for a year of consolidation in 2023, as post-COVID demand settles down and the market adapts to a new dynamic. 

The signs were already there early in 2022, and this softening continued into the early months of 2023. Prospects for the second half of the year are looking brighter, however, the macro-economic environment continues to evolve.

Economic factors like construction levels, interest rates, and inflation tend to have a significant impact on the wood finishes market, particularly residential construction.  Demand for new builds and renovation projects influences the demand for wood coatings for things like cabinets, furniture, flooring, and building products. 

Architecture, home design, and lifestyle trends also have a huge influence on home interiors, with kitchens and open plan living spaces often being the central focus. Colors that complement each other in these bright open spaces drive growth in cabinets, furniture, and flooring.

At AkzoNobel, our Global Color and Design team for Wood Coatings works with designers and architects around the world to understand the influence and impact of fashion, lifestyles, and nature on paint and coatings. These insights are then translated into robust, hard-wearing products that help to bring different types of wood to life. 

Some of the modern design and higher-end influences being reflected in the latest products include the trend for less distressing, the preference for less gray and more color, and growing popularity of natural designs and smoother woods, such as birch, cherry, burl, walnut, and maple. 

After the uncertainties of the past few years, consumers are moving away from pale and desaturated finishes in favor of organic elements, such as rattan, jute, sisal, and stone. Similarly, wood coatings trends are turning towards nature, with a host of colors and hues that are inspired by our natural environment. 

Wild Wonder™ – AkzoNobel’s 2023 Color of the Year – exemplifies these emerging trends and changing tastes. It is a golden hue inspired by the warm tones of harvested crops, with an upbeat glow that aims to connect people with nature, creating a sense of energy and positivity.

The idea behind Wild Wonder is based on the growing tendency to turn towards the wonders of the natural world in order to rediscover connection, inspiration, and balance in their lives. 

Building on annual trend research, AkzoNobel’s Global Color and Design team created four unique color palettes around the Color of the Year that are all driven by this idea of seeking balance and connection through the rhythms of nature. For consumers, the palettes make it easy to choose colors and combinations for a timeless look that’s also right on trend.

The four palettes – connected by the overarching theme of Seeds of Wonder – are:

• Lush: These “forest hues” are inspired by plant-filled habitats: gardens, forests, and woodlands. It’s a soothing palette that gives a comforting, familiar, and supportive feel to a space.
• Raw: These “harvest shades” are inspired by nature’s raw materials. Reflecting the richness of natural resources and designs, the palette creates a sense of creativity and potential in a space.
• Buzz: These “meadow brights” are inspired by the bustling bio-diversity of a wildflower field or grassland. The upbeat palette adds joy and harmony to a space, celebrating what it means to work together.
• Flow: These “seashore tones” are inspired by the regular rhythms of nature and the cyclical tides of life. It’s a subtle, timeless palette that brings a feeling of balance and fluidity.

Crazy for Color

In general, color is an increasingly important driver of wood coatings demand. Customers expect to be able to color match wood structures to other interior, architecture, and decorative brands. More wood coatings producers are expanding their color offerings so that homeowners and professional painters can easily match the coating to their client’s personal taste or to complement their client’s house color. AkzoNobel is a global leader in color. We offer countless hues according to NCS, RAL, and Sikkens Wood Coatings 5051 collections, and provide associated color fan decks and real color tools to help customers with their color and design decisions.

We are firmly committed to helping customers, not only with color selection, but with color quality and delivery, too. Our leading-edge color technology tools, including a spectrophotometer color measurement device, enable color matching with ease and confidence, while our proprietary color software puts any imaginable color at the fingertips of customers. 

Innovation is Key

Specially crafted finishes are required for different products. Our highly trained technical service team works closely with the Global Color and Design team to ensure finishes are robust and can be industrialized for customers around the world. 

Two new on-trend products that deliver on this promise of strength, beauty, and performance are the PurTone stain system and NaturaMatte.

The PurTone system provides clear, highly defined grain and stunning depth of finish. It delivers the appearance of a complex and labor-intensive multi-step wipe stain finish in just two to three easy steps. By reducing the labor involved, the system shortens the time and manual task of using finishing materials and enhances the final wood detail, without adding complexity. It can be applied using existing manual or automatic processes and can be used under a variety of clear topcoat technologies.

Similarly, NaturaMatte is a natural finish, high-performance UV coating for wood flooring, delivering the popular Scandinavian, natural, low-gloss aesthetic in a high-performance finish. It creates an organic look with warm and natural aesthetics that highlight the wood character. While most products in the wood flooring market display higher gloss at low viewing angles, NaturaMatte coatings deliver a consistent matte appearance from any angle, while the superior abrasion resistance greatly reduces scratches from daily wear and tear. 

Sustainable Solutions

Reflecting the growing prominence of environmental issues across society, sustainability and innovation are likely to be important growth areas for wood coatings, as consumers look to high solids or waterborne coatings, rather than traditional high petrochemical-reliant products.

Sustainability has always been an important part of the way we do business at AkzoNobel. Guided by our ‘People. Planet. Paint.’ approach, we’re all about collaborative innovation and pushing boundaries. We’ve set carbon reduction targets for our whole value chain, which have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), while our strong portfolio of products enables our customers to transform their operations towards a lower carbon footprint, and resulting impact on the environment. 

Durability and ease of use are two key considerations that drive consumer preference in wood coatings. Homeowners and wood industry professionals want to spend as little time as possible applying the coatings, while still getting maximum protection for the wood surfaces, including scratch and stain resistance. 

At the same time, they want to reduce their total cost of ownership by purchasing products that can remove processes or costly labor steps, while increasing their overall production capacity, therefore reducing costs. Some customers are opting for more sustainable coatings and are actively looking for products with outstanding protection and unrivalled beauty alongside environmental benefits.

*Images courtesy of AkzoNobel.