I support the paint maker RGH by regularly buying their paint. RGH prices are drifting higher off their initial lows, but their paint is still among the best value on the market–decent stuff at affordable prices.
One way RGS keeps prices down is by providing large sizes in jars. Unfortunately, jar-stored paints dry faster–much faster–than tube-stored.
So they adapted tubes for most of their sizes. This photo shows several 125ml tubes. Obviously, RGH is using the cheapest tubes possible. The ones I’ve bought all leak oil and are easily punctured, as can be seen by the black splotch on the ivory black tube.
Crappy tubes are an annoyance but at least the paint quality remains high. But now I wonder about that.
Here is a puddle of RGH’s chromium oxide green–a lake of oil. Sometimes oil might puddle from a newly opened paint tube, but this mess came from a tube that had already been used. It’s actually from the leftmost tube in the earlier photo.
Yeech. Come on RGH!
In general do you find RGH paints excessively oily?
I’ve only used Rolf’s paints a long time back when they were sold under a different name. I purchased many cans (including Chromium Oxide Green) and to my dismay several colors were extremely oily (i.e poorly made) which made them a struggle to use and thus undesirable. I’ve been considering revisiting them for reasons of economy but your post suggests to me that nothing has changed (i.e. order Chromium Oxide Green and receive a can of oily pigment).
My impression is that their quality control has improved lately. My last batch came with new caps and stronger tubes.
Upgrades to the packaging is promising however it’s the paint quality itself – a deal breaker issue of excessive oil – that was the problem (I’d only purchased Rolf’s paint in cans so packaging wasn’t a concern). My experience was that much of the paint was poorly formulated and lacked quality controls. For ex. there’s simply no excuse for the Chromium green as pictured in your post … many, many years ago I purchased a pint can of that exact color and the ENTIRE can resembled the pool of oil with with some pigment mixed in as pictured on your pallet. Rather than a nod to an older paint making tradition like Natural Pigments, it’s simply poorly formulated paint, period.
I very much like the fact that Rolf was/is a small paint maker (I like supporting that and want to see more of it ) and even more so that he offers reasonable pricing, but that’s not enough to blind me to profound quality defects that require rationalizing poorly formulated paint (which is what’s required). That much oil would be considered intolerable if it issued from a major brand – even in a STUDENT grade paint – so I don’t see the benefit of giving Rolf a pass. It’s poor value if one is sold a tube of EXTREMELY oily pigment, even at a discounted price.
was a can
The oil issues I encountered soured me on the brand.
While I continue to buy paint from RGH and believe the packaging quality has improved, I’d buy a small tube to ensure the paint quality before buying a large amount of a color with which you had a problem.
RGH’s Atelier linseed oil is among the best (cleanest) oils I’ve used.