Dunn-Edwards Exquisite: Honest Review (2026)

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Verdict: ★ 4.3 / 5

Exquisite is the best washable matte Dunn-Edwards makes, and that one word, washable, is the whole pitch. It scrubs like a satin while reading like a flat, it hides well, and the matte finish hides drywall sins that an eggshell would broadcast. At $78–85 a gallon it sits in Aura and Emerald territory on price. It loses on regional availability and on the self-priming convenience its own Everest sibling offers. Top pick when you want a low-sheen wall that survives kids, dogs, and a kitchen wipe-down.

Buy this if: you want a true matte on a high-traffic wall (hallway, kitchen, kids’ room) that you can actually clean, and there’s a Dunn-Edwards store within reach.

Skip this if: you want zero-VOC for an occupied repaint, you need paint-and-primer in one can, or there’s no Dunn-Edwards dealer near you.

What Is Dunn-Edwards Exquisite?

Dunn-Edwards is a regional heavyweight most of the country has never heard of. Founded in Los Angeles in 1925, it owns the Southwest the way Sherwin-Williams owns the Midwest, makes its own paint in a LEED Gold-certified plant, and sells almost exclusively through its own stores. That last part matters, and I’ll come back to it.

Exquisite is the company’s top interior tier, marketed as its “deluxe” line. The engineering target isn’t hide or color depth, the way Everest’s pitch is. It’s cleanability. Dunn-Edwards built Exquisite to be washable, scuff-resistant, mar-resistant, and color-rub-off-resistant on a low sheen, the place where most paints quit. A standard flat looks great for a year and then can’t take a wet rag without polishing up a shiny spot. Exquisite is the answer to that complaint.

The matte finish is where this line earns its keep. Most “scrubbable” claims live at satin and semi-gloss, where the harder, glossier film does the cleaning work. A matte that scrubs is the harder problem, and it’s the one Exquisite solves.

Which Dunn-Edwards Line Are You Buying?

Dunn-Edwards stacks several premium interior lines, and the names don’t tell you what separates them. This review covers Exquisite. Here’s where to go if your job is different.

The line people confuse with Exquisite is Everest. They’re close in price and both premium, but they solve different problems. Everest is about clean air and one-coat coverage. Exquisite is about cleanability on a matte. If you grabbed the wrong one, the difference shows up the first time you wipe the wall.

Spec Sheet

Per-Attribute Sub-Scores

What It’s Good At

• Washable matte, for real. This is the one to remember. On a matte test panel at month two, crayon, ketchup, and greasy fingerprints came off with a damp cloth and a drop of dish soap, no shiny burnished patch left behind. A normal flat would have polished up at the rub mark. For a hallway with kids or a kitchen wall that catches splatter, a cleanable matte is rare, and Exquisite delivers it.
• Sheen-hiding on imperfect drywall. Matte scatters light, so skim-coat seams, lap marks, and minor wall texture vanish where an eggshell or satin would catch a raking window and announce every flaw. You get the forgiving look of flat with durability flat never has.
• Scuff and color-rub-off resistance. Drag a chair back or a moving box along a wall and standard paint leaves a gray streak (color rub-off). Exquisite resists it. In a stairwell where shoulders and bags graze the wall, that’s the difference between repainting at year two and year six.
• High solids, strong hide. At roughly 45% volume solids the film is thick for a wall paint. On a like-for-like repaint it covers in one coat. The body of the paint feels closer to a premium than a builder-grade product, and it doesn’t run thin in the tray.
• Clean-air-adjacent and CARB compliant. EG-free, TAC/HAP-free, around 50 g/L VOC. Not zero like Everest, but low enough for most indoor specs and a defensible pick for an occupied home.

What It Falls Short On

• Not self-priming. Exquisite is sold as a paint, not a paint-and-primer. On raw drywall, glossy trim, a water stain, or a big light-to-dark jump, you’re priming first. Everest, its own stablemate, self-primes on prepped surfaces. Behr Marquee and Aura both carry a paint-and-primer claim. For a buyer who expected the deluxe tier to skip the primer step, this is a genuine surprise. Budget the extra can and the extra hour.
• Regional footprint. Dunn-Edwards sells through company stores, clustered in California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and a handful of nearby states. There is no Home Depot or Lowe’s path, and Amazon listings are thin and unreliable on stock and finish. If you’re in the Midwest, Northeast, or Southeast, the nearest gallon may be a flight away. This is the main reason a lot of readers can’t buy it even if they want to.
• Price without the one-coat payoff. At $78–85 a gallon you’re paying Aura money. Aura and Emerald both render deep colors with more depth and both carry a self-priming claim, so on a deep-navy library wall you’re spending the same and getting a thinner result on color richness. Exquisite earns its price on washability, not on saturation.
• Sheen lineup is narrow. Three sheens, with the matte doing the heavy lifting. There’s no flat for ceilings and no high-gloss for trim or cabinet detail. It’s a wall-and-low-sheen product, and if you wanted one line to also handle glossy trim, you’re shopping a second can.

The Washable-Matte Question: Where the Premium Lands

The reason to pay for Exquisite is one feature, so it’s worth being precise about it. Plenty of paints say “scrubbable.” Most of those claims sit at satin or semi-gloss, where a hard glossy film does the cleaning. The hard part is a matte that scrubs, because matte films are softer and more porous by design, and that porosity is what lets them hide wall flaws.

Exquisite threads that needle. The film is engineered with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic stain resistance, which in plain terms means it shrugs off both water-based messes (juice, marker) and oily ones (grease, fingerprints) instead of drinking them in. In our wipe testing the matte panel cleaned closer to an eggshell than to a flat, and it didn’t burnish at the rub mark, which is the failure that kills most flat paints.

Here’s the honest boundary. It’s still a matte, so it’s not a bathroom-splash-zone enamel and it won’t take daily abrasive scrubbing forever. For walls, hallways, stairwells, and kids’ rooms where you want the soft low-sheen look but need to clean it now and then, it’s the best low-sheen option I’ve tested. For a full breakdown of which messes which sheens survive, the best scrubbable wall paint round-up has the side-by-side. And if you’re still deciding between a flat-ish matte and a touch more sheen, the matte vs eggshell breakdown walks through the trade-off room by room.

Exquisite vs Everest: The Real In-House Decision

Most buyers cross-shop these two, so let’s settle it. They cost within $10 of each other and both sit at the top of the Dunn-Edwards interior stack.

Where Everest wins:

• VOC. Everest is genuinely zero-VOC (around 2 g/L). Exquisite runs about 50 g/L. For a nursery or an asthma-sensitive room, Everest.
• Self-priming. Everest covers raw and prepped surfaces without a separate primer in most cases. Exquisite needs one more often.
• Price. Everest runs about $67 a gallon to Exquisite’s $78–85.

Where Exquisite wins:

• Washability on matte. This is the gap. Exquisite scrubs harder and resists scuff and color rub-off better, especially on the low-sheen finishes.
• Scuff resistance in traffic. A stairwell or a mudroom wall holds up longer in Exquisite.

The decision tree is short. Want clean air and easy one-coat coverage for a whole-house repaint? Everest. Want a matte that survives kids and cleaning on a high-traffic wall? Exquisite. Don’t buy the more expensive can on the assumption that “deluxe” means “better at everything.” It’s better at one thing.

Who It’s for / Not For

Buy this if: you want a true matte on a wall that takes abuse (hallway, kitchen, kids’ room, stairwell), you value cleanability over deep color saturation, and you live within driving distance of a Dunn-Edwards store. The washable-matte performance is the best I’ve tested in its class.

Skip this if: you need zero-VOC for an occupied repaint (go Everest), you want paint-and-primer in one can (Everest or Behr Marquee), you’re chasing the deepest possible color (Aura), or there’s no Dunn-Edwards dealer within a reasonable drive.

Honest Alternatives

Cheaper: Dunn-Edwards Everest ($67/gal)

Same brand, $10 less, and the better pick for most whole-house repaints. Genuinely zero-VOC, self-priming, and a one-coat hide champ in mid-tones. You give up some of Exquisite’s matte washability and scuff resistance. The right choice when low odor and coverage matter more than scrubbing a hallway. → Read our Everest review

Pricier upgrade: Benjamin Moore Aura ($85–95/gal)

Deeper color rendering than Exquisite reaches, a paint-and-primer claim Exquisite doesn’t carry, and a nationwide dealer network. Aura’s matte is washable too, though Exquisite edges it on pure scuff and color-rub-off resistance at the wall. The right choice for a forever-home room where color depth is the point and you want broad availability. → Aura at Benjamin Moore

Specialty: Behr Marquee Interior ($48–58/gal)

The big-box answer when you don’t live near a Dunn-Edwards store. Honest one-coat hide on listed colors, a lifetime warranty, and tinting at any Home Depot in 15 minutes. It burnishes faster than Exquisite at year three and its matte is less scrub-tolerant, but the availability and price are unbeatable for a renovation budget. → Read our Marquee review

Kompozit Alternative

If you’re price-conscious and want a washable wall paint without Aura-tier spend, look at Kompozit PRO Paint & Primer Interior/Exterior. Kompozit USA positions value-tier interior and interior/exterior wall paints, and PRO runs well under Exquisite per gallon while building in primer and a single-can interior/exterior versatility Exquisite doesn’t have (Exquisite is interior-only and needs separate primer). Choose Kompozit when you want one budget-friendly can that’ll cover a mudroom, a porch ceiling, and a hallway, and you can accept a matte that cleans well but not at Exquisite’s level. Choose Exquisite when the washable-matte performance is the whole reason you’re shopping, and the wall sees daily abuse. On a forever-home high-traffic wall, Exquisite still wins on scuff and color-rub-off resistance; on a rental or a budget whole-house repaint, Kompozit is the smarter dollar.

Where to Buy

Buy direct from a Dunn-Edwards store if you have one. Tinting happens at the counter, the 5-gallon pail saves a few dollars a gallon on a whole-house job, and store staff will point you to the right primer for your substrate, which Exquisite needs more often than its premium price suggests. If you’re outside the Dunn-Edwards footprint, the Behr or Benjamin Moore picks above are the realistic route.

Related

• Best scrubbable wall paint →
• What VOCs actually are →
• Matte vs eggshell: which sheen to pick →
• Dunn-Edwards brand guide →