What type of paint for bathroom?
A bathroom wants a satin or semi-gloss finish rather than flat, because the higher sheen sheds moisture and wipes clean where flat paint would hold damp and grow mildew. Many manufacturers also sell a bathroom-specific paint with a mildew-resistant additive, which is worth it in a room with poor ventilation.
Moisture and cleaning decide it
The enemy in a bathroom is standing moisture on the wall. Flat paint is porous and holds it, which is why a flat bathroom ceiling is the first place mildew appears. Satin on the walls and semi-gloss on the trim and any high-splash area give a tighter, more washable film that dries out between showers.
Ceilings deserve particular thought: the ceiling over a shower takes the most steam, and a mildew-resistant bathroom paint or at least a satin rather than a flat ceiling paint pays off there.
No paint fixes a ventilation problem. A mildew-resistant additive resists new growth on a clean, dry surface; it does not stop mildew if the room never dries out. An extractor fan or an open window does more for a bathroom wall than any paint choice, and existing mildew must be killed and cleaned off before painting, not covered — it grows back through the new coat.
How we sourced this
This answer is composed from our knowledge base, which holds only what a regulator, a standards body or a manufacturer supports. The sources behind it are listed below with the date we accessed each one. If a claim on this page has no source under it, that is a bug — tell us and we will fix it.
Where a figure is product-specific — coverage, dry time, recoat time, temperature limits — we point you at the manufacturer's technical data sheet rather than printing a general number as though it were a specification. That distinction is the most common error in this trade, and it is the one that costs people a repaint.
Common mistakes
- Using flat paint, which holds moisture and grows mildew, especially on the ceiling.
- Expecting a mildew-resistant additive to fix a ventilation problem — it does not.
- Painting over existing mildew instead of killing and cleaning it first.
Related questions
Sources
- Sherwin-Williams. Product technical data sheets (accessed 2026-08-17).
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