ByKat Hours Updated
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Coffee Break: My Samplize Review

Readers turned me on to the paint company Samplize, which sends you paint color samples for you to test out on your walls in a peel-and-stick format. As they note on the website:

Unlike traditional paint swatches which are merely dyed to mimic color, our paint samples are hand painted with the specific paint color from each company. Two coats are applied with rollers for color accuracy and texture that is as good as it gets.
Real manufacturer paint
Displays color just like a wall
Shows underlying wall texture

We have a tiny painting project here at Casa Griffin and I couldn't decide what color of blue I wanted, so I went. to. town. I had something like $300 worth of samples in my cart originally. My husband and I whittled them down (admittedly, not as far as we could — don't have a martini while trying to limit your samples!) and ended up buying a ton of samples in blue. They shipped super quick and we've been moving them around in the space we want to paint, trying to make sure we know the deal on all the walls.

Do you NEED to get super large painted samples or could you just go off the typical paint chips? I suppose it depends on the color — I think it would actually matter more for a very light color, where you're deciding between Chantilly Lace or Calm, for example — but it was really fun to do for deep, dark blues. (I think we're going with Blue Chip, but Caribbean Azure and California Blue were both close contenders.) 

Sales of note for 12.5

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

69 Comments

    1. The commenters on this site are THE WORST. Nit picking everything. Go create your own blog, judgy.

        1. And yes, now I’m waiting for someone to come back with “oh and your comment is?!”

          1. Yeah, wasn’t trying to be helpful or productive. Really was just trying to point out that criticizing a free to browse website that’s run by real women is petty and makes you sound like a j3rk.

      2. There has been such an uptick in this refrain lately and it’s just as annoying as the thing you don’t like. Isn’t the point of this whole place for people to discuss their opinions on everything under the sun? You think Kat would like it if the comments stopped?

        1. So by your logic, its good to be disagreeable/borderline rude to drive more comments? I guess it worked, because I responded to you. But there’s a way to have a dialogue without being an @–hole about it. OP could have said: Kat, we’d love more details! What did you like, what didn’t you like? Instead, she said “That’s…not a review.” and you can practically hear the tone in that comment. Guess if you find people calling out armchair blogging annoying, you can take LaurenB’s advice and collapse the thread.

    3. lol, true. We need the whole story – once you settled on a color and painted, are the Samplize sheets proven accurate??

    4. This isn’t Consumer Reports. If you are not interested in the topic of paint swatches, feel free to skip it. Sheesh.

    5. I was confused, not trying to be an a$$. It looked like a) the post got cut off, or b) an undisclosed sponsored ad because it lacked details. I did in fact want to know more, which is why I clicked on it at all. Instead of what was liked or disliked, or even how much it cost per sample, we discovered the company has many different shades of blue.

      Calling it a review when it’s not, or promising more than the article delivers, has become a trend on this site.

      And come on, even when the posts on this site ask for specific topic-oriented comments, threadjacks are so immediate and common, there’s a “threadjacks of interest” section.

      My thanks again to the commenters who did leave reviews below.

  2. This seems like a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist? Just pick up a couple sample size cans at the paint shop and paint a few swatches on your walls?

    1. Yes, I’ve never experienced what they’re saying when they claim, “Unlike traditional paint swatches which are merely dyed to mimic color, our paint samples are hand painted with the specific paint color from each company.”. When I get sample cans from Benjamin Moore, they absolutely mix the sample the exact same way they do a full can. And full cans are also “dyed” (tinted), because the paint base is white and they only add color at the time you order.

      I also like having the sample cans because once I think I’ve found the color, I can then paint a nearly a full wall to really visualize the color in a large scale.

      1. I think what they mean is that the preprinted strips you can grab at the hardware store are just dyed. Not that if you buy actual sample paint that it’s somehow different.

      2. I took “swatches” to mean the free paint chips – but maybe I’m wrong. I’m with you on the little sample pots, though – relatively cheap and convenient.
        I guess samplize might be worth it if you were trying out a color from a specialty brand?

        1. I don’t like buying those pots though, especially when you’re trying a bunch of colors, because then you just have a bunch of waste.

      3. Ah, yes, that makes so much more sense! I’ve always called them strips, and say that I’m “swatching” paint when I use a sample can on the wall, so I guess that’s how it flew right over my head!

  3. OK, for an actual review: I found the Sampleize kind of expensive, so I wasn’t willing to actually stick them on my wall, instead, I taped them up with painter’s tape. I found all of the colors 100% accurate to the swatches and I even ordered a “control” of one I’d already painted in another room and it was excellent. However, I found that it was more helpful for saturated and darker colors. I could look at the swatch and really see a good idea of what it would be in my lighting. The more neutral colors? Especially grieges, light taupes, etc? I had to paint those on my walls because it was so hard to tell. So basically, I bought about $60 worth of Samplizes, and then used that to narrow down my colors and then bought paint samples from the store. It didn’t completely replace the painting samples on the wall for me. But I found it helpful to have the color cards to use for decorating and I’d buy them again as a first step. But, again, it depends on how much you like decorating/hate painting samples.

    1. Another review: I ordered about 10 samples debating a dark blue for an accent wall. Because the color was so dark, painting test swatches would have been a headache if I changed my mind on the dark color. Since ordering, I’ve moved the two favorite swatches around repeatedly and they’ve stuck on the wall for about two weeks on indecision. Painting this week. Recommend, with the caveat that its a bit of an expensive novelty but a good test run short of having 10 sample cans sitting in your garage for the next decade.

      1. FWIW, I used a small chip (freebie) and then bought 4 pints, painted each together on a piece of white foamboard, and picked a color. DID NOT LIKE IT ON THE ACTUAL WALLS. I think with a bigger sample, you get a sense of how vivid a color is, especially if it is medium or dark. I had a bathroom that was very Miami for a while. It wasn’t bad, but it helped that it was a children’s bathroom and we could use some of the Flamingo bath items from Target in it to help make it theme-y.

        1. I feel like dark blue is uniquely hazardous in this regard. It can end up looking very… I dunno, nautical in a bad way? In a way that you can’t always anticipate, no matter how much you think you’ve tested it. This has happened to me, too.

    1. Can you get one? I’m in North Jersey, and admittedly traumatized from early COVID days, but I have been to the spa for a massage. The spa I went to seemed to be taking every precaution (temp check, waivers, no facilities usage – right to the treatment room from your car, masked the entire time). It was well worth it.

      As for self-care at home, I bought a facial steamer and I steam my face once a week and do an at home facial. I’m loving this new routine and me time.

    2. I need one, too, and normally I am not about letting strangers touch me. But I’ve had stress-induced neck and shoulder pain for over a week, lower back pain from a crappy WFH set-up, and I’m greatly looking forward to my robot body upgrade.

  5. I kind of don’t get this? Does nobody else just buy the sample boards and sample pots at the hardware store? I Just painted our living room, narrowed it down to 6 shades of blue, painted 6 sample boards, threw out 4 almost immediately (too purple/too green/too light/etc.) and taped the last two on our wall with painters tape before we chose.
    Honestly I should have just listened to Pinterest, Hague Blue really IS the best deep blue if you can stomach the cost and effort of dealing with farrow and ball and their paint.

    2. When we remodeled our house I went to SW and got about 15-20 paint chips to pick interior and exterior colors. I had narrowed it down to a few colors but I left them all on the coffee table at the house where we were staying. While I was at work our dog (GSP) ate every single one of them. It was weird and gross but he was fine. Now that’s what I think of when people mention paint chips.

    3. I’ll bite, what’s hard about dealing with Farrow and Ball? Are they MLM-y or something?

        1. I have also heard they don’t go on easily- I’m cheap so I just brought a few fb paint codes to sherwin Williams and had them copied.

      3. Expensive, and tricky to get to go on evenly, plus you REALLY need to use their (expensive) primers or the colors won’t turn out as well. Unfortunately my son and I both get migraines and he has asthma, so when they say the paint has no fumes and is organic they really mean it. It smells like nothing (maybe vaguely like sour milk??) and I can have rooms painted without needing us to relocate for a weekend while the house airs out. That’s worth the cost and finickiness to me, but for those less sensitive to smells I wouldn’t do it.

  6. I’m a subject matter expert for a fairly arcane topic in international logistics. A coworker contacted me today to say a customer was looking for someone to walk them through it, would I be able to get on a call with them, maybe I had a slide deck I could present? I said sure, happy to (and I am, it’s actually a topic that I enjoy teaching and I can get very geeky excited about it). Great, conference call scheduled, invites sent. 15 minutes later this guy (my coworker) starts emailing me things he is copying and pasting from the Wikipedia page on the subject in case I want to “use it as talking points, not sure if you already have this?”

    2. Send him a link to the Wikipedia article on mansplaining, in case he didn’t already have it.

    3. Sorry, this sounds enraging. But it’s given me a laugh for the afternoon.
      How did the call go? I’m sure you were GREAT!

    4. Ha ha ha. Reminds me of the first chapter of Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me” where her own book was mansplained to her at a dinner party. Facepalm.

  7. Pro tip: we never did sample squares more than like 2 ft by 2 ft. Instead we just picked the color we liked, then had them mix it at 50% strength. It always came out right. If we tried 100% strength it was always too dark!

  9. This seems like overcomplicating things, and I’d also be concerned that the color perception will be influenced by the color surrounding it on your walls.

    I just buy sample pots and some 18×24 foam core boards, and paint a large sample on the foam core boards, leaving a couple inches of white border surrounding so I can see the color in isolation. The foam core boards are easy to move around from room to room and in different lights, and they’re not permanent on the walls.

  10. I have had no ability to focus and been terrible at my job since quarantine started. The writing is on the wall that my husband is likely to get laid off soon from his job. My job works fine remotely, but his field is in serious trouble due to Covid, and the entire field is likely to see a lot of workforce reduction. I suspect he either going to have to find a new field or be out of work for a long time. I have got to pull it together and get ready to be our only source of income for….who even knows how long. Our finances are very much not in shape for that to be the case. I am already so exhausted and overwhelmed. Advice and/or commiseration appreciated.

    1. I have no advice but hugs from an internet stranger and I hope this group can be a source of support and motivation through a difficult time!

    2. Betsy- that is really hard. Advice will vary based on some factors. Kids that need homeschooling? Hubby generally pulling his weight? Do you have a dedicated office and good work environment (assuming that you’re working at home)? Some of these ideas may not work if you don’t have a dedicated office or if you are homeschooling.

      Assuming that you are WFH, I would first make sure that you have a dedicated place to work. However you work best, try to set it up. Pandora/spotify, sunshine, darkness, noise-cancelling headphones, whatever. Fresh plants or flowers on your desk. Photos of loved ones.

      First, do you need a few days off? Even if you can’t go anywhere, you could do yoga, meditate, get creative in the kitchen or do a belated spring cleaning if that makes you less stressed.

      Would working out help or stress you more? Setting a time for yourself in the morning to take a walk, or at 5pm or 6pm after the work day. Yoga before work?

      Figure out how to plan your work. What works best for you? Do you need a bullet journal or a time chart on computer or a plan-a-day planner? You can read about this online but my advice would be to make a master list of what needs to be done before you finish work on the day before. Plan what time you’ll start work, if that’s a motivational issue. The night before or first thing in the morning, set up 5 things that need to be done that day. Break the goals down into discrete tasks and set a time frame for the morning and afternoon. Get a pomodoro timer or set your computer timer set for 25 minutes, then 5 minutes break then 25 working. Repeat. As you complete things, check them off. That is the reason to break goals into smaller tasks so you can check them off as you go. Then after a day or two of planned tasks and accomplishments, set a weekly plan and build on those successes. (I use the Mountain Planner Pro, which has daily task areas and calendar time slots along with goals for the day, and also has weekly and monthly planning pages.)

      Plan a good lunch – meal prep, or frozen Amy’s or a favorite bagel sandwich. Have some tea or seltzer or coffee after lunch. Plan and take a 15 minute morning and 15 minute afternoon break.

      Do you have a former coworker that you can lean on for moral support? Someone not on your current team but who knows you and/or your team and your work style and the challenges of your job. Call them and ask them to be an accountability partner for you. Explain that the pandemic has you rattled. This person may welcome the idea of decompressing and helping themselves while helping you. Text them or call them at the beginning and end of the day and check in. Tell them your goals for the day. Vent to them. Maybe it’s not a former coworker but a sister or BFF. But someone who you can ask for help and not worry about complaining to.

      If internet surfing sucks you in, install a web blocker. Give yourself a timed 15 minutes on phone or ipad on your lunch hour instead as a reward. Lock your cell phone away or put it in another room if it tempts you.

      Plan your work, work your plan. Reward yourself for accomplishing tasks. Pick away at things and literally pat yourself on the back or hit the done button for each task completed.

      Then moving on to your husband. I hope he’s supportive and will realize that helping you succeed is the key to getting through this pandemic/job stress together. Can he take on more household tasks? Can he help by lowering your stress? If he does indeed lose his job, then he will have more time to help around the house. Kid teaching, cooking, household cleaning, yardwork.

      Anyway, those are my suggestions. I’m sure that you can get through this tough time and I’m sure you will.

  11. This is a long shot but neither my GP nor my endocrinologist have helped much and I’m looking for possible causes to ask them to look at more seriously/find a specialist.

    I am generally tired. I have much lower energy than most people I know. I wake up with joint pain and feeling achy and not very well rested. I have an autoimmune hypothyroid problem that is medicated to within normal limits so GP/endo seem to think that’s the end of it but I’m tired of being tired all the time.

    I am not overweight and I force myself to exercise. Anything with jumping/impact makes my joints miserable. I sleep 8-9 hours a night and still need an hour nap over lunch. As in Dead to the World napping in utter exhaustion.

    I wish I felt more energetic but I have no idea where to start. Anyone else have a similar issue/thoughts on possible things to look into?

    1. In the spirit of random internet advice — Have you discussed going to a rheumatologist with your GP or endocrinologist? What you are describing was pretty much my mom down to a T a few years before she was diagnosed with RA. Also, consider having your doc check for a vitamin D deficiency.

    3. Could it be narcolepsy? Or a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea? I encourage you to try to push your GP on this a bit. They tend not to be very attuned to the possibility of sleep disorders and give BS advice like if you are tired, eat more iron or something. Explain the extent of the problem and try to get referred to a sleep specialist and/or a sleep study.

      1. Thanks for the thought. My husband hasn’t mentioned any oddness about my sleeping but I am open to anything at this point.

    4. I sometime feel like I’m repeating myself so if you’ve heard this from me before, I apologize. The reason I mention this because autoimmune diseases run together, so if you have one you are more likely to have another. I had the same problem with tiredness, joint pain and it was celiac disease, which is an autoimmune disease. Before diagnosis, I would wake up in the morning and feel like I’d been run over by a truck. Joints, spine, back, hips and knees. After going gluten free, I stopped having regular back pain and mostly my joints don’t ache. It really had an impact on my whole body. For those who are sensitive – not everyone – wheat can be an inflammatory agent and can affect every part of the body, not only the digestive tract.
      But joint pain is a recognized celiac symptom as is tiredness. Even if you are not diagnosed with celiac, you could try going gluten free for a 6 week period and see if the joint pain and energy issues improve.

      You could also not be medicated correctly with the thyroidism, which is a problem for some people. You can go down a big weird rabbit hole on the internet about thyroid meds but it’s an idea.

        1. Forgot to mention that narcolepsy can also be an autoimmune disease. Similarly, if you have one autoimmune disease, you could have autoimmune narcolepsy.

      3. i was absolutely going to advise OP go gluten free for a month and monitor progress. I don’t h ave celiac but two rounds of Whole 30 and my 3 years since then have proven that eating gluten gives me joint and body aches and fatigue and brain fog, (dairy give me congestion and fatigue too), and I am a whole new person since going GF – lost about 20 lbs permanently without even trying, too…in part because the newfound energy has me working out much more regularly.

    5. Get a referral for a sleep study and get an appointment with a rheumatologist. This could be fibromyalgia or a variety of auto immune disorders. A good rheumatologist can diagnose and treat all of them, just be prepared for the diagnostics to take a while as a lot of things need to be ruled out, like sleep problems which can only be diagnosed in a sleep study. Mine took 4 months to arrange but I learned that I had 5 sleep disorders, not just the 1 or 2 that were supposed to be studied.

    6. Hi, I have rheumatoid arthritis. Get tested. It’s a blood test or two (rheumatoid factor, anti nuclear antibodies). Mine was sky high. I limped around on sore knees for a year and gave up knitting before I finally got the blood test. My PCP was USELESS.

      If your insurance allows you to go directly to a rheumatologist, like a PPO would, do it. Describing fatigue and joint pain should be enough to get you in the door.

      Good luck.

      1. (To clarify PCP = primary care physician, and USELESS is not an acronym but an adjective that is generous, if anything)

    7. Have you tried combination therapy? (T3/T4?) T4 only is never enough for some people.

  12. I’m Korean. Could I wear a “Nah. – Rosa Parks” quote t-shirt?

    I’m thinking it’s one of those, “If you have to ask, don’t do it.” situations and I should (metaphorically) keep walking past that particular display in the store.

    (Link to follow, if you haven’t seen these)

  13. On the topic of paint colors….

    I’m having a super hard time picking a white color for my living room, dining room, and guest room. The living room is kind of dark, with windows facing east/se. The guestroom faces the same way, but seems lighter since one window doesn’t face into the carport like the other. The dining room windows face west/sw but we have a covered porch.

    I want a white that isn’t too stark, but also doesn’t have any yellow undertones. I’m considering SW Alabaster and Snow Bound. Any other suggestions?

    We tried these samples when we first moved into the house and they were helpful with moving different colors into different rooms…but we still ended up buying small sample cans.

    1. Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace would be perfect! I have it all over my apartment and it’s just as you describe — not crazy modern white, but softer, but not as yellow as “simply white.”

    2. I’m slowly repainting the inside of my house in Sherwin-Williams alabaster. It’s pretty and it’s light, but it’s a kind of creamy white with more yellow than I had expected.

    3. Hope I’m not too late for you to see this – Snow bound is our trim and door color and I love it! I feel like it’s exactly what you said you want – a nice creamy white that is truly white, but not too stark and not yellowish.

  14. Do these come in different paint finishes? Because that seems like it would really affect accuracy of how it will look once you’ve painted.

    1. From the website:

      We do not offer custom finishes at this time, but it is something we may offer in the future.

  15. I am a total Samplize convert. I like to try a lot of samples, and I hated the waste of (and had no room to store) all the little sample cans. I’ve used Samplize for my last 3 paint projects and been really happy with the end results. I don’t peel and stick though, just tape to the wall and move them around periodically to check the color on different walls and in different lighting.

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