5. Conclusion

Paints on plastics are widely used to give new functionalities such as look and feel (soft, for example) and thus greatly increase their added value. It's hard to imagine that some polymer parts can't be painted, as this is part of their aesthetic function.

In the automotive industry, one of the main outlets for painted polymers, the trend is towards the overwhelming use of clearcoats rather than lacquers. These clearcoats are very often metallized, or even effect paints (interference pigments), and their appearance depends directly on the orientation of the pigments in the basecoat layer. This orientation is determined by the painting method (number of coats and direction of application of the last coat to form the basecoat, see §