Natural Paints

Natural paints are now quite widely available but what exactly are they? Certainly their name suggest chemical free compositions that have been extracted or produced from minerals or plants easily found in the natural environment. We don't have to look far to see how well nature uses colour and texture it has long been the desire of man to emulate the vast array colours that surround us outdoors, within our dwellings. A return to caveman technology perhaps, where stoneage man decorated their caves with coloured materials that easily came to hand - charcoal from their fires, blood from the animals they killed, chalk from which their caves were often formed and ochre from iron veins which, in acidic water areas bubbles up from underground. Whilst I don't know of any company using blood as a natural colour in their paint all the others mentioned above are likely to be getting incorporated into some of the new 'Natural Paints' that are now available.

Science is playing a big part in the research and development of paints from nature. The paints need to be not only easy to apply, durable, colourful and easy clean but most important of all, be healthier to use and live with.

It is only in recent years that the consumer is beginning to wake up and realise that they cannot just leave to trust, that manufacturers will only use harmless products. Whilst the natural paint manufacturers are marketing into an increasingly, environment and health aware market, it remains clear that price is still the dominating factor that influences the majority of purchases.

Natural paints should use simple uncomplicated science. Is this really true and if it is then why do we  used term and is most commonly associated with paint that has reduced VOC levels. Yet is this enough to satisfy the term used. Some companies go even further and claim their paints to be 'Organic' Organic is a difficult and sometimes misleading term. Some manufacturers are playing on words and being purposefully misleading. Their products may actually not be be not organic in the way that you might imagine. A rock is organic, most of the deadly poisons in use today are classified in science as organic.

So what should we expect from an ecopaint?
All paint should firstly be able to perform the job expected of it but an ecopaint should go further and satisfy a number of environmental and health concerns that have developed over the past couple of decades. No doubt these concerns will change over time as new variants of paint highlight different problems. It has been known for some time now that painting is is one of the most hazardous trades, therefore of greatest concern when choosing tends to be that of the health effects from the paint to the user and the building occupier.
So from this we should conclude that an ecopaint should:
*         release less fumes in use
*         leave less toxic material on the surface (the paint) when decoration is complete
*         be as easy to use as ordinary paint
*         not pose health problems when we come to remove or dispose of them

Are there different ecopaints?
Yes. We can classify ecopaint into three distinct groups.
*         Chemical
*         Mineral
*         Plant

Chemical ecopaints
this group of ecopaint will be the most simple to use but will have many properties in common with ordinary paint. Chemical ecopaints have generally reduced or low VOC's (Volatile Organic Solvents). Less VOC's make the paint more acceptable for the user (the painter) this is the only area where government has introduced legislation and forced all paint makers to reduce VOC's. VOC's have predominantly been replaced with water as the solvent. As a number of observers have highlighted the fact that in order to replace the chemical solvent with water more chemicals have often had to be used.

Mineral
Mineral paints are as the name suggests made from natural minerals. Rocks and ores. Mineral paints date back to cave painters who would have ground up ores to create colours for their cave paintings. Traditional buildings throughout Europe have mineral paints on their exteriors that have been weathering the elements for hundreds of years. Mineral paints by their very nature use water as solvent. the simplest mineral paint is limewash also known as whitewash. Mineral paints' strength lies in its ability to combine with the background material which fixes its durability. Mineral paint technology has progressed to a level that makes it ideal for use indoors even on wood!

Plant
If the word organic could be attributed to any paint it would naturally fall to a plant based paint who's ingredients were grown following certified organic standards, though none of the manufacturers seem to be pursuing this objective at present. Also plant based paints could also be considered the most sustainable as the resource can be grown and harvested in a sustainable agricultural cycle.