There are many factors that go into the price of certain colours of paint, the main one is the pigment. Is it hard to find? maybe it's hard to mine, or maybe its both!
Let's take a look at the colour Lapis Lazuli, a series 7 Michael Harding oil paint. Lapis Lazuli (or lapis for short) is a colour made from Lapis Lazuli metamorphic rock, a semi precious stone that has been mined and prized by humans for its intense blue colour for over 5,000 years!
Lapis was originally ground into a powder to create the pigment for Ultramarine before a synthetic version was invented. The incredibly lengthy process of washing and grinding makes the natural pigment incredibly expensive, even worth it's weight in gold!
When you factor this and the fact that the purest stones are only found from the Sar-i Sang mining district in north east of Afghanistan (This is where Michael Harding sources its pigment). With some other mining deposits located in Chile, Russia, Angola and Canada.
Lapis Lazuli is both rare and incredible hard to create into usable pigment for painting. Both these factors lead to Lapis being a universal top series paint across almost all brands and paint types.
This is why some tubes of paint are $25 or some tubes, like the Lapis Lazuli are over $200!
