On May 9, 6:44*pm, David in Normandy
wrote:
Mike wrote:
I have a very smoke laden room to paint. The ceiling is quite brown
all over except above the fireplace where there is a large area where
it is really dark with nicotine ....... you know the sort .... like
where you see an old smoker's fingertips dark and engrained with the
stuff.

I am pretty sure just painting brill white vinyl matt on it will just
loosen it all to give a lovely streaky brown mess.
I have steamed off wallpaper and watched nicotine run down the walls
... yuk.
Will a good scrub with sugar soap be enough to get rid of it enabling
me to paint ?

Mike *P

We had the same problem on moving into our French property. We were
advised ordinary water based emulsion paint wouldn't work. Tried a small
area and sure enough the brown just came straight through. On
recommendation we ended up buying some spirit based white emulsion. It
was expensive as hell, as paint tends to be in France anyway, but the
brown has not come through after nearly four years of doing the job.

Surely if it's not water based, it ain't emulsion?

MBQ