How to Choose an Eco-Friendly Paint
More and more families, businesses, and designers are trying to live a greener lifestyle. They’re choosing energy-efficient lights, paying attention to the sustainability of the materials they choose, and being proactive about their air quality. When it comes to eco-friendly living, there are a few ways to start living greener—one is ensuring that you’re choosing a health-focused paint. We paint to add character to our homes and our businesses, and when we pick an eco-friendly paint, we’re starting off on a more sustainable path. If you need some help deciding which is the best for you, here’s our guide on how to choose an eco-friendly paint. Check it out!
Do Your Research
The first step to getting the perfect eco-friendly paint is doing your research. You need to make sure that you understand why you’re looking for green paint. Do you want to address the needs of those who have chemical sensitivities? Are you worried about painting the nursery? When you do your research on how eco-friendly paints make a difference, you’ll be that much more careful about choosing the right eco-friendly paint.
Search for Air-Purifying Paint
Once you’ve done your research, you might find that the main reason you want an eco-friendly paint is because you want to breathe in clean air. You may be worried about painting your child’s room because of her sensitivity to strong scents or you may just want to ensure that your business is holding up green standards across the board. Do yourself a favor and look for paints that are air-purifying—they’ll be designed to remove contaminants from the air to help keep you and your space healthy. They’ll trap harmful VOCs from floating around the room and will seal them in.
Avoid VOCs
So if air-purifying paints are sucking up the VOCs, then it’s a good idea to look for paints that avoid VOCs altogether. If you really want a space that’s green and sustainable, then volatile organic compounds should not be present. Conventional paints emit fumes from chemicals like formaldehyde, glycol, fungicides, and more as they dry—that’s where that harsh smell comes from, and that’s what’s bad for your air quality, for your body, and for the environment. These are just some of the things you should not be okay with finding in your paint can.
Check out the Ingredients
Apart from VOCs, you should also look and think beyond zero-VOC. Many chemicals that contribute to illness and are bad for the environment are not regulated VOCs, so even if you have a low-VOC or VOC-free paint, it doesn’t mean that it’s eco-friendly. That’s when you want to look to the ingredient list and see what’s going on in the product you’re choosing. You should feel confident in the ingredients and confident in your paint choice.
ECOS Choice
All of these factors in how to choose an eco-friendly paint point you toward ECOS Paints. We pride ourselves on our health-focused paint, which is non-toxic* and zero VOC**. There’s no conventional paint odor, it’s free of harsh chemicals, and it’s water-based—we’re the paint you can feel good about for your home or your office. We want you to feel good about your choice. Shop ECOS now.
*Non-toxic: conforms to ASTMD-4236, specifically concerning oral toxicity, skin irritation and respiratory effects.
**Zero VOC: confirms to CDPH 01350 (VOC emissions test taken at 11, 12, & 14 days for classroom and office use).