Mineral Surfaces · Solutions
A hand-polished tadelakt powder-room wall in muted dusky-pink. A Rajasthani saffron limewash bedroom in a Jaipur restored haveli. A vintage-spatula accent wall in a Bangalore designer apartment that reads halfway between Studio Lotus and Apartamento. A pigmented Tamil oxide-red dining room in a Chettinad restoration. Decorative mineral finishes are CHOSEN, not specified — the audience is the architect, interior designer, project owner who wants a SPECIFIC visual register, and the LEINOS decorative system is the documented Indian-context delivery vehicle for it.
Find your application
Hand-polished tadelakt-style mineral surface in muted dusky-pink, oxide-red, ochre, or pearlescent register — Vintage Finish 635 trowelled then stone-burnished for the signature wet-look sheen. Mumbai contemporary powder rooms, Bangalore villa entryway feature walls, Goa boutique-hotel reception walls. Artisan-applied only (Bijoy Jain Studio Mumbai / Studio Lotus Delhi register). 3 working days per 12 m² wall.
3 compatible productsWater-based silicate primer that evens absorbency on interior mineral walls — lime plaster, cement, clay, brick, aerated concrete, gypsum board. The prep coat under LEINOS lime, silicate, and natural mineral paints.
View product detailsRich, creamy emulsion with natural waxes for maintenance of surfaces treated with LEINOS Vintage technique. Refreshes and provides antistatic benefits.
View product detailsConcentrated mineral pigment additive for on-site custom tinting of LEINOS water-borne natural-resin paints and decorative finishes.
View product detailsSystem & Substrates
For whole-room base coverage on standard interior walls use the LEINOS Interior Walls solution (Interior White Paint 650 or Natural Resin Emulsion 660). For exterior heritage limewash see Exterior Mineral Facades.
The Coating System
Primer plus topcoat — the full chain.
Topcoat Options
Choose the finish character; the primer underneath stays the same.
Mineral Plaster Primer 622 — bonding primer over fresh lime, gypsum, or cement plaster. Mandatory before any tadelakt-style decorative finish; the substrate dictates the final sheen.
Mineral Plaster Primer 622 — water-based mineral bonding primer. 1 coat, dry 6 h, recoat 12 h. Required under hand-polished decorative finishes for adhesion and uniform absorption.
Vintage Finish 635 — LEINOS tadelakt-style mineral finish. Trowel-applied, smoothed at thumbprint-stage, polished with a smooth stone or soap-and-water 24 h later for the signature hand-polished sheen.
Vintage Finish 635 — mineral tadelakt-style finish. 2 thin coats, trowelled smooth then polished with stone or soap-burnishing after 24 h cure. Final sheen develops in 7–14 d as the mineral carbonates. Artisan-applied only.
Pigment Concentrate 668 — used in-batch to tint the Vintage Finish before application. Dose 1–5% by weight; muted dusky-pink, oxide-red, ochre, and indigo palettes read best on the tadelakt sheen.
Pigment Concentrate 668 — alkali-stable mineral pigments for tinting Vintage Finish 635 in-batch. Shake well. Dose 1–5% by weight per intensity. Mix a full batch at once — re-mixed batches will not match.
Step by Step
Tadelakt-style finishes are unforgiving — every dent, ridge, screw-pop, and uneven absorption shows through the polished sheen. The substrate must be fresh lime plaster, cement plaster, or properly-prepared gypsum, sanded smooth and uniformly absorbent. RH below 70% during application; temperature 12–25°C. Bangalore villa entryway, Mumbai contemporary powder room, Goa boutique-hotel reception wall — all need a 1–2 m² mock-up board approved by the designer before scaling to the actual wall.
Tadelakt is hand-polished mineral craft, not paint application — pricing is artisan-day-rate, not per-square-foot. A 12 m² feature wall takes 3 working days (substrate prep day 1, two thin coats day 2 with the polish window, stone-burnish day 3). Bangalore, Mumbai, Pondicherry, and Jaipur have small but real artisan networks; Bijoy Jain Studio Mumbai and Studio Lotus Delhi have specified this register in recent residential and hospitality projects. Lock the artisan before locking the spec — a wrong applicator will not save the finish.
Stir 622 well. Apply 1 thin even coat with a wide brush — work into corners and edges first, then field. Dust-dry 6 h, fully recoatable 12 h. Skipping the primer is the single most common Indian-context failure on tadelakt — the Vintage Finish polishes patchy where absorption varies; the primer equalises the substrate for the artisan to work against.
Decide the final pigment dose and mix the ENTIRE batch for the wall at once — Pigment Concentrate 668 at 1–5% by weight gives muted-tone-to-rich-tone. Indian decorative register reads best in dusky-pink, oxide-red, ochre, warm-grey, deep-indigo, saffron. Pearlescent variants of 668 (Gold-Satin, Sterling-Silver) work beautifully in Mumbai entryway register but cannot be mixed with each other. A re-mixed second batch will not colour-match — single-batch discipline is mandatory.
Load a Japanese spatula or stainless steel trowel with the tinted Vintage Finish. Apply a thin even coat with overlapping arc strokes — the LEINOS canon is 1.5–2 mm wet film, no thicker. Work the whole wall in a single session; once started the wall must finish without overnight breaks (the joint will show as a polish line forever). Let dust-dry 6–8 h before the second coat.
Second coat is the visual finish coat. Apply the same thin film with the spatula, then watch the surface — when a light thumb-press no longer leaves a print but the surface is still cool and damp (typically 30–60 min after application depending on humidity), come back with a clean dry trowel held at a low 15° angle and burnish in arcing strokes. This is the smoothing pass that the eventual polish builds on — get this stage right or the polish has nothing to lift to.
After 24 h of cure, the surface is firm enough to polish. Two paths: (a) traditional smooth river-stone polish — buff in small circular strokes until the wet-look sheen emerges; (b) olive-oil-soap burnish — wipe a thin film of natural soap (NOT detergent) over the surface and burnish with a folded cotton cloth. Both develop the signature tadelakt sheen. Coverage is slow — about 1.5–2 m²/h of polish work. Do not over-polish; the sheen lifts in 4–6 passes and over-working dulls the surface.
The final colour depth and the signature wet-look sheen only emerge as the mineral carbonates with atmospheric CO₂ — 7–14 days in Indian conditions, longer in monsoon. Keep the room ventilated and avoid water splash on the surface for the full cure window. Cure-period appearance often reads slightly washed-out and chalky — this is normal and develops away as carbonation completes. Photograph the wall at 14 d, not at 24 h, for the portfolio shot. Re-burnish every 3–5 years to refresh the sheen.
System Composition
Why It Works
Pick the Right Build
Powder-room feature wall behind a brass vessel-sink. Primer 622 (1 coat) → Vintage Finish 635 tinted with Pigment 668 at 2% dusky-pink (in-batch) (2 coats, trowel-smoothed at thumbprint stage) → stone-polish after 24 h. 14 d carbonation cure before first water splash. Wet-look sheen reads architectural in low-light powder-room context.
622 + 635 + 668 (dusky-pink, 2%)
Single feature wall in a residential entryway, daylight-front-lit. Primer 622 (1 coat) → Vintage Finish 635 tinted with Pigment 668 at 4% oxide-red (in-batch) (2 coats) → olive-oil-soap burnish after 24 h. Rich-tone Indian heritage register against IPS oxide floor; reads as quiet luxury in raking afternoon light.
622 + 635 + 668 (oxide-red, 4%)
Hospitality feature wall, evening-lit by warm tungsten. Primer 622 (1 coat) → Vintage Finish 635 with Pigment 668 Sterling-Silver pearlescent at 3% (in-batch) (2 coats, trowel-smoothed) → stone-polish after 24 h. The pearlescent shifts subtly through the evening as guests move past — boutique-hotel design-language register.
622 + 635 + 668 (Sterling-Silver, 3%)
French-quarter restoration, ground-floor courtyard wall under partial shade. Primer 622 → Vintage Finish 635 tinted with Pigment 668 at 5% warm-ochre (in-batch) (2 coats) → stone-polish after 24 h. The deep warm-ochre tone matches the Pondicherry French-colonial pastel register; specify with a Pondicherry artisan who has restored this period palette before.
622 + 635 + 668 (warm-ochre, 5%)
What to Expect
What to Avoid
Scope & Limits
This solution applies to decorative ACCENT zones, FEATURE walls, and FOCAL-POINT applications on prepared interior mineral substrate — fresh lime plaster, cement plaster, properly-prepared gypsum, or mineral render. Mumbai contemporary powder-room walls, Bangalore villa entryway accent walls, Goa boutique-hotel reception features, Jaipur restored-haveli bedroom walls, Pondicherry French-quarter dining rooms, Chettinad restoration dining rooms — these are the documented surface contexts.
In the wild
Common Questions
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Adjacent applications
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