Classic Coatings | Simple Stain (Spanish Cafe) | Concentrated | Water-Based, Semi-Transparent | Zero VOC, UV Stable | Interior/Exterior | Easy to Use, Fast Drying

Before, during, after. I used Spanish Cafe, Dark Slate, and high gloss top coat. Used a pump sprayer for the colors in clockwise motion for the first color, then counter clockwise for the second color, rolled the top coat. Videos on the product website were helpful. Definitely a trust the process product, it did not look good during the application, but as it dries the color variation really pops. Very pleased with the end result!! Hoping it is durable!

Worked at it said it would. Just followed the directions. I have another project and I'm going to use it again.

Easy to use

This is a great idea. Our execution left a bit to be desired. We did a good cleaning on our 10+ year old concrete. We used the Company's recommended cleaner. After a prep, we were ready to stain. The product instructions are not very thorough, but there are enough videos online to help you stumble through the process. The product goes on easy. The color on the screen was WAY off what dried on our concrete. I don't have a recommendation for avoiding this problem, but be aware there may be significant variation between what you think you buy and what you actually get. This product MUST be mixed THOROUGHLY. Ours arrived with very large color chunks that had settled out of the product. For the first bottle, we followed the instructions. Frustration does not begin to describe what we experienced in our attempts to apply that first batch. We constantly had to disassemble our sprayer, clean the wand and tip, and try again. Four bottles later we evolved into a process of mixing with a drill and paint paddle until all observable chunks were gone and then pouring the stain through a paint filter into the pump sprayer. It is a bit early to have an opinion on quality and durability. I'm hopeful. As for the project, we didn't buy enough stain because of the tremendous variation between what we wanted and what we got. We had to go to a local big box store and purchase the best match to finish up the job. Overall, I am disappointed with the product. I won't call it a bad product, but the advertised coverage and actual coverage were not even close for my project. And this is a very expensive option. The other product we purchased from our local big box store went farther, did not require the extensive mixing, and cost 3/4 of what we had to pay for one bottle of the Classic Coatings Systems concentrate. And while you are calculating your cost, remember to include the price of 1 gallon of distilled water for each quart of Classic Coatings Systems you purchase.

Great product, goes on well but caution it can coagulate a little and cause darker stain spots. Updated my pool deck

The product was old, which means it had a lot of seedy hard pigment balls that would not mix and breakdown after following the instructions red reducing it with water it clogged several paint trainers to strain it into bug sprayer, and the result was very poor coverage would not recommend

Stain quality

Used the Spanish cafe to stain an old limestone fire place. It worked perfectly. Great color. Easy to use, cover well, covers a lot of area.