Let’s say that you’re about to paint your living room, and you're ready to paint it today. Being a good person, concerned about your environment, etc., you're going to want clean paint -- you want "green" paint, something that isn’t going to create smog and degrade the ozone layer. What should you look for in a can of paint?
Paint, for one thing. (Trick question?) The other thing would be a nice label around that can, with the words “low odor, low VOC” somewhere on it, in big letters.
There are a number of good-quality, non-toxic (or “less toxic”) paints out there. Many paint manufacturers have added low or zero VOC paints to their product lines. All of those paints are quality products, of course -- that is to say, they do what they're supposed to do, i.e. cling to the surface their painted on.
How safe is "safe"?
What may not be immediately apparent is that some of those paints will contain chemicals that some people are sensitive to even though they carry the low VOC imprimatur on their labels. For example, one of the better paints out there right now is a brand called American Pride. This is an excellent paint; it lays well, it spreads well, it is in fact, low odor, it is in fact low VOC. However, it does contain mildecide, which is nice, if you're trying to fight mildew or otherwise retard the growth of mildew in your home.
But some people are allergic to mildecides, and not everyone who is allergic to mildecide knows this about him or herself. A good rule of thumb is, if an additive is designed to kill some biological agent, it may not be all that good for you.
Having said that, American pride is my all-time favorite paint. It is low-odor, low-VOC, as noted above -- and it's competitively priced.
Movin’ on up
One of the better paints of any kind that you will find on the market is AFM Safecoat. This paint company has been around for decades, and their products have been developed with chemically sensitive people in mind -- with the actual cooperation of those chemically sensitive people and their doctors, forsooth, which says a lot to me.
Safecoat paint is practically bulletproof: Looks great, wears well, clean and green – what more can you ask for?
Depends on who you are. Safecoat has only two drawbacks from my perspective, 1. It’s sort of pricey, and 2. it's hard to find, especially out east.
Benjamin Moore now has a product called Eco-spec, which is a low-odor, low VOC paint that is generally available around the country. I haven't used it; I understand that it, too, is sort of pricey; but it's probably worth it, as I have never had a problem of any sort with a Benjamin Moore product.
What about “milk paint”?
Beyond these "canned" solutions, there are milk or "casein" paints, which are available from a number of sources. If properly prepared and applied, they will do the job.
And there’s the rub. A lot of people get very nice results from milk paints. But people frequently buy milk paints, for the best reasons and with the best intentions -- and then bring the package back to the store with a sad store: "It didn't stick. Can we have our money back?"
If you ask these people enough questions, you'll find that they failed to prepare the milk paint or the surfaces they were painting properly. It takes a fair amount of time and effort to mix and apply enough milk paint to do your living room, and a lot of people lose interest after the first few batches – or so one may surmise; something has to explain the disparity in results.
Remember: Bad painters, like bad carpenters, tend to blame their tools.
You want to be a good painter.
