<human>: Hi Reddit, I bought my house over 2 years ago with my fiance and it needed a lot of work doing to it.

We've replastered a couple of walls already using both mixed and pre-mixed plaster and found the pre-mixed plaster is a lot thicker and heavier than the mixed plaster. However, the mixed plaster we cooked up seemed to lose its wetness pretty quickly and refused to stay on the walls. 

Just in case there are multiple types of plaster, the pre-mix stuff we bought was a dark grey that cracked once dry. The mixed stuff was a light grainy grey. 

Using the heavy pre-mixed plaster, we redid our hallway ceiling (first PVA coat to seal the original artex, then did 2 passes of plaster with the odd fill in) but this took us 3 days to do such a small patch. 

I've been watching videos of decorators skimming a ceiling, and they get the same coverage done in a matter of 30 minutes without the need for a second pass. 

The first thing that strikes me is that the plaster they're using looks a lot creamier than the stuff I've been using, and it's pink. 

Is there a particular type of plaster I should be using for the ceiling? Hardware stores just tell me to buy the expensive £40pl Artex Pre-Mix Ceiling Plaster.

Oh, and we also asked a professional and were quoted £1900 for all 3 ceilings, but they wanted us to clear out all 3 rooms at once for 3 days so they could do it back to back (that means we'd need to rent storage and a van, so another £500)

Can you condense the text into three sentences or less?
<bot>: What type of plaster should I be using on my ceiling? Should I add anything to the mix to make it stick better?