Additivo opacizzante di COLOURLOCK

COLOURLOCK Dulling Agent reduces gloss directly in the color

What is the COLOURLOCK Dulling Agent? An additive for professional workshops: COLOURLOCK "Duller" is stirred into leather color or Top Coat and scatters light within the curing film. This allows a dyeing to achieve the deep-matte factory finish of modern automotive leathers, which a matte Top Coat alone cannot provide.

The COLOURLOCK Dulling Agent is the adjustment screw that detailers and upholsterers use to fine-tune the gloss level of a dye job downward. COLOURLOCK "Duller" introduces solid matting particles into the mixture, which scatter light in the drying film instead of reflecting it. The additive is never applied pure but is always stirred in, and is available in 250 ml and 1000 ml / 1 liter sizes.

• Up to five percent goes into the leather color. This is the manufacturer's preferred route because the additive is then evenly distributed within the pigmented layer. Up to three percent can be added to the Top Coat, although this increases the risk of a gray haze on dark leathers. Percentages higher than this weaken the color film instead of making it flatter.
• Flatter than a matte Top Coat alone. A matte finishing lacquer represents the lower limit of standard pre-bottled products. New car leather is often finished even flatter than this value. The additive extends the scale downward so that the repair does not appear one level too shiny compared to the surrounding area.
• Gloss is corrected where it originates. Anyone who realizes that the surface is too shiny only after the color application would have to cover the problem with an additional layer. When stirred in, the matting level becomes part of the color itself. In practice, this means: one layer less on the leather and a film that remains elastic.

Pro-tip from Detailing1: Mix the required amount for the entire surface in one go, not in batches. Two percent in the first cup and three percent in the second will result in two different gloss levels on the same seat set, and you will only see the difference in daylight once both surfaces have fully dried — we frequently receive inquiries exactly like this: the driver's seat and passenger seat match in color but look differently flat in grazing light. Second point: Dulling particles are solids and will settle in the prepared mixture, so stir again before refilling the spray gun, otherwise, the last cup will spray flatter than the first. And keep a small reserve of un-dulled color aside: it is the only convenient way back if you go too flat.

New car leather is flatter than a matte Top Coat alone

The eye reads differences in gloss faster than differences in color. A dye job where the tone is a shade off is rarely noticeable. One that reflects flatter or greasier than the adjacent surface is instantly obvious.

Modern automotive leathers are finished very flat from the factory. Their top layer already contains matting particles that scatter incoming light in many directions. This additive is made exactly for these cases: for leathers whose gloss level is lower than what a pre-bottled matte lacquer provides. Anyone working there with only COLOURLOCK Top Coat Matte will end up one level too high.

The result is never judged head-on, but in grazing light. Position yourself so that light from a window or lamp pulls flat across the surface, and move your gaze from the treated area to the untreated surroundings. Viewed head-on, two gloss levels look almost identical; at a shallow angle, they separate clearly. From the daily life of Detailing1: Dissatisfaction after a dye job almost never arises from the color tone, but from the edge between the treated and untreated surface.

The second reason for this category is aging. Seat cushions, entry bolsters, and steering wheel rims are polished smooth by clothing over the years, while the back seat and door panels remain matte. Anyone who dyes such a worn-down area and finishes it with a standard gloss level preserves the condition they actually wanted to eliminate.

This leads to a rule for planning the effort: The smaller the surface, the more precise the gloss level must be. A completely finished seat surface brings its own reference level, and the seam to the neighboring panel hides the transition. A palm-sized repair in the middle of an aged surface does not have this buffer — there, half a matting level decides whether the spot disappears or remains visible as a light-colored patch.

The additive mats the film, not the surface

Matting is not a coating, but geometry. The difference between matte and glossy arises from the roughness of the top layer, not its color.

COLOURLOCK "Duller" is a dispersion of fine solid particles. As it dries, the water evaporates, the polymer particles of the color move closer together and fuse into a closed film — the particles remain as microscopic irregularities in and just below the surface. This structure reflects light diffusely, like frosted glass instead of a mirror. You can tell by the fact that the surface no longer shows a sharp light streak on the window frame, but a soft gradient.

Because the effect comes from the structure and not from a layer, it cannot be used alone. Applied pure, the additive lacks the binder that holds the particles together in the matrix — the layer would remain chalky and could be wiped off. It is a component of the mixture, not a separate work step.

The coating industry measures gloss with a gloss meter at a defined angle of incidence and expresses it in gloss units. On a car seat, you don't need this device because an on-site comparison decides more accurately than a numerical value: the repaired surface must hold up against the untreated one, not against a standard. For you, this means that the test sample is not a detour for beginners, but the measuring instrument for this job.

And it always changes both: gloss and, to a small extent, the appearance of the color. A matting particle also scatters the light that the pigments underneath reflect. Dark tones appear minimally brightened as a result, light ones hardly at all. This leads to the dosing rule for this category: A little bit mats, a lot creates grayness.

Five percent in the color, three in the Top Coat

The additive has two mixing points, and they are not equivalent. The manufacturer specifies up to five percent for COLOURLOCK leather colors and up to three percent for the Top Coat.

The color is the recommended route. There, the additive sits in a pigmented, already opaque layer, and the matting level becomes part of the color build-up. The Top Coat is the fallback route in case the color is already set and only the finish needs to be one level flatter. In exchange, you risk a gray haze on black and dark brown leather.

Starting should be at the lower end of the range. Begin with one to two percent, stir thoroughly, spray a palm-sized sample on a hidden area, and let it dry completely. Wet, every mixture looks glossier than when dry; judging after five minutes will reliably lead you astray. If the value is not yet correct, you can go further down in small steps.

Everything is arranged in a fixed sequence. The process begins with degreasing, followed by primer and barrier layer, then filling tactile damage, then the color build-up in several thin spray passes, and finally the Top Coat. The additive does not intervene as a separate step, but changes the mixture at exactly two points in this chain. How the steps before interact is shown in COLOURLOCK Dyeing & Finishing.

Application is via spraying. Mated mixtures require the fine, even mist of a spray gun, because the particles distribute unevenly in a film applied with a sponge and form clouds. The manufacturer is thus expressly addressing workshops that dye regularly and have experience with spray work.

Dark leather responds to too much Duller with a gray haze

The first limit is the reason why color is the preferred mixing point. Matting particles scatter light regardless of the color underneath, and on black or dark brown leather, this scattering manifests as a gray haze over the tone.

The manufacturer suggests a countermeasure for this: mixing up to three percent leather color into the Top Coat neutralizes the graying. This is a correction, not a standard method — it is cleaner to add the additive to the color from the start, where the haze does not even form. From the community, we know this pattern from care products as well: the milky gray haze on dark leather is almost always a question of quantity, not the product.

The second limit is direction. Once in the cured film, matting cannot be removed. If you go too flat, you can only raise the gloss via a new pass with a higher gloss component — using COLOURLOCK Top Coat Gloss — and thus work an additional layer onto the surface. That is why one approaches the target value from above, from the glossy side.

The third limit is the demand on equipment. Without a spray gun, without a test sample, and without the patience for several drying pauses, the additive will not produce a better result, but a more restless one. We often see photos of surfaces where matted color was wiped on with a sponge: the matting level shifts with the pressure of application, and the streaks remain visible.

And two honest disclaimers at the end. The additive does not replace a Top Coat — it adjusts the gloss; protection against abrasion, sweat, and cleaning continues to be provided by the finishing lacquer. And it has no place on an airbag seam: if the damage is on or directly at the tear seam of the seat bolster, the part belongs to an upholsterer or a leather technician who can properly open and resew the seam. The most difficult part of a dye job remains the color match in the aged environment, not the chemistry above it.

Gloss, grip, and viscosity are three separate controllers

The dulling agent is one of several additives that all go into the same mixture. They target different properties, and that is precisely the advantage of this line over a finished product.

Gloss is the first controller, and that is what COLOURLOCK "Duller" is for. The second is the grip: a piece of leather can look perfect and still feel wrong. The COLOURLOCK Soft & Wax Slip grip additives are also stirred in — COLOURLOCK "Soft Slip" lowers the coefficient of friction for a velvety feel, COLOURLOCK "Wax Slip" creates the slightly waxy feel of many matted factory leathers.

The third controller is viscosity. A matted mixture runs off vertical seat bolsters and backrest edges just as easily as an unmated one. COLOURLOCK "Thickener" from the COLOURLOCK Thickener category thickens the dyed filler so that it stays where it belongs. A fourth controller is durability, which is adjusted via a crosslinker in the Top Coat.

It is important that the controllers influence each other. More solids from the dulling agent change the flow behavior, more thickener changes the spray mist, and both together can shift the opacity of the color. Therefore, you never turn two controllers simultaneously, but first set the gloss and then the grip. All additives in the line can be found one level higher under COLOURLOCK Additives & Auxiliaries.

What this division has over a finished product is not better chemistry, but accessibility. A pre-bottled matte finish delivers exactly one gloss level, one feel, and one viscosity. A workshop processing three vehicles with three different factory conditions one after another sets the appropriate value for each. That is more decision-making than a finished product requires, and less rework when the result must hold up next to an original surface.

Without a spray gun, you do not need a dulling agent

Honestly put: This additive solves a problem that only arises when mixing yourself. Anyone not applying a full dye job, but only wanting to calm down an intact surface that has become too shiny, is better served by the ready-made path.

For this case, there is the color-neutral matte base from the COLOURLOCK Leather Fresh Matte category: COLOURLOCK "Leather Fresh" (Dull / Neutral) refreshes and brings the matte gloss level with it without you having to mix anything. If, however, a real dye job is pending and you only want to keep the finish matte, the matte Top Coat from the COLOURLOCK Top Coat & Finish category is sufficient.

The additive is the answer to the case below: new car leather or very flat-finished furniture leather, where the finished matte lacquer still reflects too much light. Anyone who dyes regularly and works with a gun takes the 1000 ml / 1 liter, because the additive then runs along in many mixtures. For individual objects and occasional work, the 250 ml is sufficient without having an opened bottle sitting on the shelf for years.

And the point that defines the sequence during mixing: The gloss level is the only dimension of a dye job that can only be corrected in one direction in the cured film — upward, via an additional layer. Therefore, the second mixture always costs more time than the first. Start a shade too shiny and go downward in small steps, then you won't need it at all.