Milk paint is a very wonderful, unique paint, but it has its quirks--some of which are delightful and others which just take a little experience to get around. It's both a technical and user-friendly paint in different ways. I'm giving a long review of my experience with milk paint in hopes that it will answer some questions for those curious to try but maybe confused by the varying experiences of other reviewers.This paint is formulated with a dry powdered combination of natural pigments, milk and lime, the latter two which act as binders to get the pigments to stick to the item's surface. It does not look or act like conventional acrylic (plastic) or oil-based paint, which are completely uniform in color and have pigments made from petrochemicals with a more viscous consistency. You then mix the measured out powder with water at a suggested ratio of 1:1, but you can mix it thinner or thicker depending on your needs.The natural ingredients in this paint mean that there is low to no-odor and it is safe to paint indoors even in winter. There is also no off-gasing (conventional paints can off-gas for up to four years,) so if that is a concern for you, milk paint is a fantastic choice for no VOC. It is also safe for use on children's toys and the excess paint can be thrown into the garden as compost--that's how natural it is. Disposing of conventional paint requires many more products and steps and is not great for the environment.Depending on the color, it can sometimes have a subtle variation in tones, which brings artistic brush strokes into play (I like cross hatching) and gives it an evocative depth that is unable to be matched in acrylic or oil-based paints. For example, this variation is not present at all in the bright white, which makes sense as it's most likely just calcium carbonate (think sea shells or chalk) as pigment, but in the color I bought most recently--Dragonfly--you can tell it is a combination of multiple pigments of blue and green tones. I have found it also depends greatly on your application and mixing as to how much or how little variation you get. It's a paint that is alive, almost, in a way. So for some this is an exciting quirk, and for others this might be frustrating if they don't know to expect it. You can also mix milk paint powders together and achieve any range of colors you'd like. I've mixed the white into a lot of my darker colors just for some lighter hues and it's worked out extremely well.It generally requires multiple coats to get an opaque color, the first pass (or two depending on how thin you've mixed your paint) being more of a stain which lets the wood grain show through. This can actually be to your benefit if that is the look you are going for. I have achieved some really beautiful white wash looks with thin coats of the bright white milk paint. If a wash is not your aim, just paint another coat or two or mix your paint slightly thicker.Unlike acrylic paint--where globs of dried paint will preserve your mistakes unless you remove all the paint and start from scratch--you can sand milk paint with a fine grit sandpaper after application for a silky smooth surface, which I recommend even if you haven't made any mistakes as it smooths out the surface wonderfully!Speaking of sanding, items need to be prepped before painting. This is true with any paint, but most people tend to skip this step. That might work out o.k. for acrylic and oil-based standard paints, but with milk paint you need to sand well before you apply unless it's being applied to raw wood, and even then a light sanding can't hurt. If you don't sand first and are painting something that has already been finished (either painted or varnished or etc,) your paint will likely crack and fall off. Even if that's your aim, to get a crackly shabby chic look (which is not how I use milk paint, I like it for more complete coverage rather than the distressed look for which many love milk paint)--you still need to do some sanding or risk it all falling off in a not nice way. If you're applying the paint to something that's not been sanded down to raw wood, you might want to consider also using Ultra Bond from the same company, which helps the milk paint adhere to many different surfaces. I have found having a little bottle of Ultra Bond invaluable when using milk paint.Some not as fun quirks are that milk paint tends to foam up right after mixing, which is why they suggest to mix it the night before to let the pigments have time to meld together and to give the foam time to settle. They also sell an anti-foam liquid that you add a few drops of to cut the foam. I haven't purchased this, but I have found a few drops of their pure tung oil does an okay job at this as well. I imagine that their anti-foam is a pine or some type of oil, but I don't know for sure. Painting right away with just mixed, foamy paint is generally inadvisable, but I've done it and it's worked out fine. The foamy coverage might be frustrating though for first time users, and if you've got a bubbly mass of foamy paint, it will dry as a bubbly mass that you can then just sand down and perhaps add another coat if your coverage wasn't so good, so definitely recoverable.Milk paint also needs to be sealed if it's going to be somewhere that will be touched a lot or will need to be wiped down. I personally don't know when I would use milk paint and not seal it, but I'm sure there's something, like a ceiling? There are multiple different ways to seal milk paint, all with their own pros and cons. Their website is a great place to check them out. My personal preference is Dead Flat Finishing Cream, which I prefer because it's wipeable, you can paint over it with more milk paint, it's relatively easy to apply, and unlike the Semi-gloss finishing cream (which I tried first,) there's no noticeable streaking of shiny and less shiny areas if your application isn't perfect. Haha, I learned my lesson with that one.For areas that I need to be extra durable/waterproof, I've sealed it with their Pure Tung Oil, but this cannot be painted over and can make the milk paint color change to something darker and maybe slightly yellower. Pure Tung Oil on raw wood also changes the color to a more yellowy dark color, but I have found that a thin whitewash coat of the bright white before tung oiling can preserve the tone of the wood's original color while you still get the waterproofing benefits of the Tung Oil. I wish I would have known this before I Tung oiled my wood ceiling, but oh well!Only mix as much milk paint as you're going to use at one time and refrigerate any unused paint until you are ready to use it again. It will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge, but it's best used fresh.Phew! That's probably the longest review I've ever left on Amazon, but I really love this paint and think it's a wonderful eco-friendly choice with a lot of artistic potential!