The 7 Best Paint Sheens for Your Bedroom

Picking the right paint is an important part of bringing your dream bedroom to life, and with a dizzying array of options, it can be tough to know what paint to choose. The sheen or surface texture of your paint can affect the overall function as well as the look of your wall, so knowing your finishes can be crucial. Whether you decide to paint your own bedroom or get some help from a local interior painting pro, here’s what you need to know about the best paint sheen for your bedroom.

Why It’s Important to Choose the Right Paint Finish for Your Bedroom

When you’re designing your ideal bedroom look, you’re likely focused on choosing the ideal color, but it’s important to consider the paint finish as well. Paint finish will affect how reflective, durable, and easy to clean the paint is, and different rooms will look best with different finishes. The paint finish you choose can help set the mood of a room and complement your decor choices to make your dream bedroom a reality.                                            

1. Flat Paint

Flat wall paint has the least reflectiveness of paint sheens, and it’s rougher than glossier alternatives. Flat paint can be good in a bedroom to create a cozy space because it won’t reflect much light. Flat paint is the best choice for your bedroom if you want to sleep in past sunrise and don’t want excess glow from your walls.

But because flat paint is rougher and more porous, it can be more difficult to clean and can show wear more than other paint sheens.

Best for: Cozy bedrooms, ceilings

2. Matte Paint

Matte finish is slightly reflective, but not much, allowing it to appear just a little bit glowy while still not flashing reflections at you. It can be suitable for bedrooms as it’s less reflective than other sheen but still has a little radiance under light.

Matte paint is a bit more durable than flat paint, although not much, and it’s slightly less porous, making it a little easier to clean.

Best for: Smaller bedrooms

3. Eggshell Paint

Eggshell paint has just a little bit of gloss to it, and it’s smoother than its flat and matte counterparts. As a result of its less porous surface, eggshell paint can be easier to clean. It hides imperfections well and shows less wear and tear, but it’s also more reflective than its matte and flat counterparts.

Eggshell paint is only slightly reflective, so it’s ideal in bedrooms to add a little bit of brightness during the day without being too reflective in low light. It’s also a good choice to paint a nursery since it’s easy to clean and not too shiny.

Best for: Bedrooms with low or average natural light, nurseries

4. Satin Paint

Satin paint is smoother and more reflective than eggshell but doesn’t quite make it into the glossy category. Its luster is more like the surface of satin fabric, hence its name.

Satin finish paint is shinier and less porous than flatter paints and thus more durable, but its increased reflectiveness makes it a less attractive choice for a low-light bedroom application.

Satin finish doesn’t hide imperfections on your wall’s surface as well as flat paint, so it requires more surface prep than less glossy alternatives.

Best for: Kids’ rooms, bedrooms with lots of natural light

5. Semi-Gloss Paint

Semi-gloss paint, as the name implies, is almost as glossy as paint can be. It tends to be durable and resistant to wear because of its nonporous, smooth surface. Semi-gloss paint is even worse for hiding perfections than satin, so it requires a pretty high level of detail when doing surface prep to ensure it goes on smoothly.

Usually used for trim, semi-gloss paint also can be a good choice for outdoors because it’s mold- and mildew-resistant, but it’s a little too shiny for a bedroom.

Best for: Trim, accents, doors

6. Gloss Paint

Gloss paint has a high level of sheen and is one of the most reflective paints you can get. While it’s durable and easy to clean, it can be an annoying choice for a bedroom because of its shiny surface with a glaring reflection from a light source.

Since gloss paint is so durable, it’s often used on trim and for outdoor applications, but it also shows flaws in the surface it’s applied to, so it requires a high level of surface prep.

Best for: Trim, accents

7. High-Gloss Paint

High-gloss paint is the glossiest you can get. Usually sold as an enamel finish, it’s the smoothest, least porous option for paint sheens and has an almost mirror-like surface when dry.

It’s not a good choice for a bedroom because it will have a highly reflective surface and will bounce light around a room like a mirror. However, it can be good for high-traffic areas as well as areas that might get wet since it won’t absorb water.

Best for: Trim, accents

Choosing the Right Sheen for Your Color Preference

Flat paint, while not highly reflective, will give you the most saturated look for your color. If you want your wall to have a high-quality color output, especially for rich, bright, and darker colors, flat paint is the way to go.

Medium sheen paints like eggshell and satin are more durable, less porous, and still have some of the color saturation effects of their flat and matte finishes. They’re your go-to middle ground if ease of use and maintenance is a major concern.

Higher gloss paint is the easiest to clean and maintain, but it has the least saturated color quality, so it can be less appealing for darker and richer colors of paint.

Choosing the Right Sheen for Your Level of Light

If you have a room with lots of bright light, using a high-sheen paint will likely cause a lot of reflection. As a result, in rooms where you want to create a cozier feel, like bedrooms, a flatter sheen is ideal. Less glossy finishes like flat, matte, and eggshell will help even brighter lights look less glaring and more inviting.

The shinier the paint, the more distinct of a reflection you’ll get, and the more light will illuminate flaws on your painted surface. This might not be such a big deal for your kitchen trim, but on your bedroom wall, it might be an overpowering choice.

Choosing the Right Sheen for Your Level of Traffic

Flat and matte paint are known for showing dirt and being more challenging to clean because they’re more porous than their glossier counterparts. While they might have the coziest appearance, they’re also a little more difficult to maintain, so choose a sheen level somewhere towards the middle. Glossier paints are even easier to clean, so for trim in higher traffic areas, they can be durable and simpler to maintain choice.

Choosing the Right Sheen for Faux Finishes and Stenciling

Adding a specialty finish over your paint, like limewash, stenciling, or color washing, means that you need a surface for the paint to stick to. Even if you plan to coat your finished faux wall with a clear sealer that’s glossy, you should still start with a good primer and flat paint. Having a foundation that will help your faux treatment stick to the wall will get you longer-lasting results and better color overall.