My Helmet Paint is Yellowing

[JBar]

I painted my MonCal helmet about 3 years ago and I used Rustoleum Appliance White. I was so excited to finally find a perfect matching white for my SC armor as Appliance White gave that super bright ABS white finish. After waiting around a week for it to cure, I coated it in Krylon Gloss Enamel. For the first year or two my helmet matched my white armor, but after a year in storage I took my scout out to troop and found the helmet is noticeably yellowed. I see that the rattle can lid I test painted with has yellowed at the same rate, so I don't think it was a storage issue. I had my helmet in a cloth helmet bag completely out of any sunlight. Maybe the issue was using Krylon Gloss Varnish but I didn't use it on the test cap and it yellowed the same way.

Normally I expect ABS to yellow but in this case it's the paint I used apparently. I think the answer is to deal with the yellowing but I wanted to see if there was any chance at slowing or stopping the process. In the future are there any white paint brands that people use to retain the whiteness?

Here is a picture before the yellowing:

[Chopper]

When it comes to paint it's usually the clear coat that starts yellowing. I typically tell folks not to clear coat for that very reason.

I've never used that particular type of Rusto paint before, but I also wonder if the epoxy aspect of the paint might be part of the issue.

Unfortunately, short of sanding and repainting, there's no magic method to remove the yellowing from either paint or clear coats.

[CatfoodRob]

If it’s got a decent yhickness of clear coat over the base paint , you could try rubbing compound on the laquer to see if you can remove a tiny layer , as it’s usually the outer most molecules of clear coat that start to yellow