There are so many choices when you start painting a room. What colour paint should I use to paint my nursery? What shade of paint should I paint my kitchen? Matte or glossy? How much? Do I need special bathroom or kitchen paint? Or one that’s wipeable?

I bet one of the questions you don’t ask is ‘what are the effects of me using this paint?’
Or, ‘what chemicals I am exposing my family to by using this paint?’ True? So, why don’t you ask these questions? Scared of the answers? Well, its time to take your head out of the sand and realise what you’re putting on your walls!

Normal, non-natural paint contains ingredients that can be highly toxic. Did you realise that the vapour from non natural paint can irritate the lungs so badly that it can trigger asthma or allergies? And that’s also when it’s dry. Normal paint continue to emit a low amount of toxins which are called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Natural paints do not do this. Using natural and organic paint it is healthier for the people around you. If you choose to use natural paints they are perfect if you suffer from chronic illnesses because they don’t expose you to toxins.

And what about your environmental cost? The poor way that standard paint is manufactured and the abrasive ingredients that it made from leave a sizeable CO2 footprint. There are so many environmental benefits to using natural paints because there are no nasty chemicals released during manufacture also, therefore, the natural paint won’t affect the soil, ozone or water supply. A lot of the types of natural paint that are left over can be easily disposed of too.

Do you read the list of ingredients that paint is made from? I suspect that most people wouldn’t know what they were looking at if they did. You should look for paints that contain natural pigments, milk proteins or plant dyes and natural oils. It is the chemical colours in standard paint that cause the noxious vapours and VOCs.

If you want to promote a healthier lifestyle and make the right choices for the environment, then use natural paint rather than standard ones.