Tamyia changed their paints!

A few years ago a few governments made it changes to importers. That was the foreign labels needed to be changed for English speakers. To me this makes sense, and I'm a bit surprised this wasn't put into effect much earlier. When the warning labels are there but in Japanese it's not going to do me any good in an emergency.

This did have a side effect however, many Japanese products were dissapearing off the shelves, leading the rumor that Tamiya paints and accessories were banned from North America. This wasn't true at all (and thankfully) Tamiya was simply designing new labels, which caused a delay in shipments and production.

Older label (LEFT) With bigger lettering- New Label (RIGHT) with more details added and smaller lettering.

So the newly packaged paints arrived on the shelves and everything was good in the world again. Right? 

I had first noticed this with their Olive Drab paint. That the newly packaged paint was a lot darker than the previous example. In fact it was nearly a black drab, which does look nice but I wan't planning on using that dark of an Olive Drab.

Recently however I got really upset. I needed a white grey color. I had used a white-grey on the Bandai 1:72 Resistance X-wing. This was XF-83 Medium Sea Grey, and I thought adding a few bottles white XF-2 would help me achieve the desired color. 

Older XF-83 (LEFT) --- New XF-83 (RIGHT)

Now the bottle I used originally was and older label, and it looked great. However when I mix paints I prefer that they all be brand new. So they aren't in any way contaminated. This helps them to mix better. I mixed the Grey, and White paints, and noticed that the new White-Grey I had mixed was darker, than the original XF-83. I looked inside the paint pots and was stunned how much darker the new labeled XF-83 was. In all actuality it's not even the same grey!

I'm still going to use Tamiya acrylics. They are easy for me to get here in Canada, and I like how easy they are to use.  However all this being said, I'd really like an acknowledgement from Tamiya that they changed their paints. And more to it, I'd really like to know why?  Why are so many paints darker?  And many of them are, I've looked at older A6M Zero's I've built compared to more recent ones and seen changes, I never really paid attention to.

Again, I'm still going to buy Tamiya paints, but I'm going to be more careful. As I still see the older labeled paints in stores from time to time. I hope I'm not the only one whose noticed this, or maybe I've moved into..... the Twilight Zone.......