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Either bristle or foam brushes will work well with Milk Paint and Top Coat. The folks at GF might use several types of brushes for a project.

For example:

LIFE OF PRODUCT

Water-based products do not last forever, even when unopened. General Finishes products are best used within 1 year of the manufacture date listed on the bottom of the can. The life of the product may be extended to 2-3 years with proper care and storage.

1. Velour works best for laying down very thin coats, almost like you're spraying - perfect for cabinets. Great for Brushable White Enamel or even White Poly.
2. Micro-Fiber lays down a much heavier coat. Use this for full-bodied finishes such as General Finishes Milk Paints or primers. These load so much paint that they may leave a texture when using a high viscosity material like GF Milk Paint - just feather it out with a brush.
3. Nano Flock works best for applying thin coats of water based topcoats. They hold the product to be able to a do long strokes.

GF is rather conservative regarding the life of our Milk paint. Water based products do not last forever, even when unopened. General Finishes products are best used within 1-2 years.

Vinyl or paper veneers can be often found on the end returns of lower price-point cabinets. We cannot guarantee that our paints will adhere well to a paper veneer - we have no idea what the actual material is or what adhesives were used to apply the veneer to the surface. The resins and additives in our paints may break down the adhesives used for the veneer.

And Milk Paint does NOT adhere to vinyl.

GF advises extra care and prep when applying any finish over laminate surfaces because they are specifically designed not to mar and therefore they are not very "sand-able", making adherence difficult.

In addition to this non-permeable surface factor, General Finishes Gel Stain is an oil-based product, and it is more difficult to obtain proper drying characteristics over a dense manufactured surface such as laminate. Gel stains, as all wood stains, were formulated to go over raw wood which has an "open" surface and can absorb some of the stain.

Now more than ever, water-based stains offer a viable alternative to oil-based and other solvent-based stains.

Water-based stains penetrate deeper into wood than oil-based stains, resulting in deep, rich colors in only one coat. Manufacturers, professionals, and DIY users moving away from solvent-based products to water-based systems find immediate advantages...