Recommendations for Tube Cap Challenges

At Golden Artist Colors, we take great pride in our commitment to listen to our customers' needs. Many of our products, even entire product lines, were first created in response to the needs of an individual or a small group of artists. We place tremendous value in the personal relationships we have developed with artists over the years. We are committed to producing tools that push the boundaries in art, allowing the most creative community in the world to be able to record it successfully. Our commitment of quality to artists is not only about the paint that comes out of the container, but everything that goes along with that - the information on the label, the hand-painted swatch and, yes, that infamous tube cap.

Our customers have shared with us that our tube caps are not meeting their needs because of problems with sticking, not sealing properly and cracking. Though we are disappointed to learn that we are letting artists down, we are grateful that our customers are so willing to share this information with us, asking us to be a more responsive company.

Our packaging engineer has researched the problem by recreating the failures and continues to work toward a solution. Until we find the answer, we will continue to look for alternatives that meet our quality goals for the product.

In the short term, for customers in the US and Canada, we do have replacement caps available at no charge through Customer Service for those that have cracked. Customers need only call 1-800-959-6543 or send an e-mail to [email protected] to get a replacement until we present a better solution. Customers residing outside of North America should call 1-607-847-6154, send an e-mail to [email protected] or contact their country specific distributor by using our Web site Store Locator at http://www.goldenpaints.com/storelist/index.php. If you have specific questions about this issue or if you'd like to discuss your experience further, we're eager to speak with you.

Although we'd prefer that they worked all the time, we do have some tips for customers suffering from closure challenges and frustration:

Clean the threads before closing the container.

Try using a small piece of plastic wrap directly on top of and in contact with the product as well as the container's threads. This will help create a barrier between the paint and the cap, preventing the paint from sticking to it.

Try applying a small amount of petroleum jelly on the threads (avoid unnecessary contact with paint inside) to make it easier to open the container the next time it needs to be used.

Cleaning or removing dried paint from containers will dramatically increase the useable life of the product inside. All of these products will dry by water evaporation, so the better the container is sealed, the better chance the product has to stay wet and workable longer.

We welcome comments for other solutions being tried to overcome the challenge of tube caps sticking. They can be shared with us through Mark Golden's blog, Mark Golden on Paint. At The lids off - (or not) you will find recent viewpoints from artists regarding this issue.