Shinhan Professional Designer's Gouache Review

Basic Information

I’m able to buy Shinhan Professional Designer’s Gouache for $4.23-11.23 in the UK, so for me, it’s very affordable at $6.64 per tube (average).

The 15 ml tubes are standard size compared to other gouache on the market.

Shinhan says they use pure pigment in a gum arabic binder without any additives. I asked if their paint is vegan friendly, and they said ‘yes except the black colors contain PBk9,’ a pigment derived from animal bone. This is the same across all brands. You have to avoid that pigment if you require a vegan friendly palette.

I purchased 5 colors to try:

Cadmium Lemon Yellow (PY35)
Moss Green (PY3/PBr6)
Quinacridone Red (PR254)
Carmine (PR17)
Ultramarine Deep (PB29)

This wasn’t my first time using Shinhan Professional Designers Gouache. I bought my first few colors last year because it was on sale (amazingly cheap at £3.00 per tube!). This is the video of my first impressions.

I’ve been using it ever since. Typically I use one or two of these in my travel palette, so I rarely paint with all of these colors at once. This was a good refresher.

Swatches

Performance

I instantly remembered why I was impressed with this gouache the first time I tried it. As a mixing set, this a fun bunch of colors, and they perform extremely well. Very creamy, very opaque (even the yellow) and painting larger areas of sky and gradients in the water barely took any effort.

The paint flows very smoothly over the paper. When thick, it doesn’t get sticky. When diluted, it’s not goopy. It’s almost hard to believe it is so affordable. They’ve done a brilliant job with their binder formula, and it truly is a high performing gouache.

While painting, I kind of forgot I was using it. That’s a big compliment. It means I wasn’t fighting with the paint, and it did what I expected.

Conclusion: To be honest I find it difficult to give this gouache any negative feedback. It’s a joy to paint with. It’s affordable in the UK, so for me it’s one of the best gouache brands I can get. Once I use up most of my current tubes of gouache, I’ll definitely be buying more of this.