If you’re looking for a paint to impart an allover metallic effect or one that can just add a light-catching detail here and there, metallic acrylics may be the way to go. But it’s hard enough to find an acrylic paint with a flawless consistency, let alone one with a beautifully balanced metallic sheen. Many look too glittery; others too dull. To find that perfect space between the two extremes is an art that few companies have mastered. Fortunately, we’ve located some excellent products to guide your choice. Check out our reviews below.
1. Amsterdam Standard Acrylic Paint
Many serious artists prefer to buy their pigments one at a time, rather than in a multipack. If you are among them, consider picking up your favorite colors from Amsterdam. Smooth-flowing, pigment-rich, and lightfast, the metallics from this line are brilliant but very subtle—more pearlescent than glittery. Though the palette is a little limited, with less than a dozen to choose from (including pearl green, pearl violet, and pearl red), the paints are priced so you don’t have to feel overly precious whenever you use them.
2. FolkArt Metallic Acrylic Craft Paint Set
Many metallic multipacks include a rainbow of tones, but if all you’re really after is a variety of silvers and golds, this set is just the one for you. You get seven two-ounce tubes of gold, copper, and silver paint plus one bottle of black. The paint is water-based and nontoxic, making it suitable for children. Each of the metallic pigments stays true to tone when dry and is highly pigmented for a truly opaque finish.
3. Shuttle Art Metallic Acrylic Paint Set
If you’re looking for a metallic pigment set for beginners, consider this multipack. Included are 20 flip-top squeeze bottles (60 milliliters each) in a variety of metallic hues—from burgundy to peacock blue to forest green—all nontoxic and easy to dispense. The set even comes with three brushes and a palette. The colors are all low-luster metallic, giving off a glow without going over the top in the glitzy sheen department. The paint dries quickly and is waterproof and fade-proof; it’s suitable for hard surfaces like wood and metal as well as soft ones like canvas and apparel. And all of this comes at a very reasonable price.
4. Jacquard Lumiere Metallic Acrylic Paint
Like Amsterdam’s paints, Jacquard’s are sold individually, but expect to pay more for these premium paints. Sold in 70-milliliter jars, this metallic acrylic paint is available in many more colors, with the company offering an impressive range of 33 colors. The paint has an extremely smooth texture and is highly pigmented, so a little goes a long way. It is suitable not only for traditional painting but also for stencils, screen prints, and more; it will even produce good results on softer surfaces like fabric and Styrofoam. Each pigment, whether classic silver and gold or a bolder hue like violet or crimson, has a nicely calibrated sheen that is neither too glittery nor too matte.
5. Golden Fluid Acrylic Paint
Golden’s fluid paints have a noticeably heavier body than others on our list. But though the formula is thick, it is silky to allow for smooth following on top of top-notch covering power. These highly lustrous paints come in a set of 10 snap-top bottles holding one ounce of paint each, providing you with a beautiful and bountiful range of classic metallics like bronze, pearl, and three variations of gold. These are easy to mix without muddying and dry true to form with a slightly glossy finish.