Dye

Use case

Polished concrete, accent work, and correcting acid stain that came out weak

Durability

Moderate — UV-sensitive, sealer required

Price band

Low to mid

How does dye work?

Dye particles are small enough to travel into the capillaries instead of sitting on top, so they hit the strongest and most uniform color of any system, and they do it in minutes rather than hours. That speed is the catch: there is no working time to correct a lap mark, so you spray wet on wet, keep a wet edge, and never stop in the middle of an open floor. Solvent-carried dye penetrates deeper and reads more translucent while water-carried dye stays shallower and looks more opaque, and polishers commonly apply dye between grits so the next pass drives it in and burnishes it. Treat most dyes as interior products, because the fine organic pigments that make the color so vivid are the same ones that fade in direct sun, and no sealer fully solves that. Dye is also the standard rescue for an acid stain that came out pale, since it will tone over a reacted floor without stripping it.

Screen colors are approximate. Obtain a physical sample from the manufacturer before specifying. Color names and swatch systems are manufacturer trademarks, shown here as editorial reference with a link to the official chart.