Eco Child’s Play

I remember being eight months pregnant with my second and realizing that I absolutely must paint the baby’s room now. I know, it makes no sense, the baby will never notice and I’d have been much better off taking a nap, but I had to have that lasso border in the room or…

I dunno. Seven years later I still can’t finish the sentence because, it doesn’t make sense to me now or then but I know I needed the stinkin room painted. A few short months ago that freshly painted room sent out the last of it’s toxins. Seriously.

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I can not believe I worked so hard to protect my children, but laid them down to sleep in a freshly polluted room. What most of us didn’t know until recently was that we’re inhaling our paint for years to come. We know to get the lead out, we know that you should use a low VOC paint formula but there’s a lot you don’t know. Paints traditionally have been made into two parts, one part (microscopic) plastic balls and the other is a solvent that makes those plastic balls malleable so they stick to the walls. The solvents are chock full of VOCs and they become a part of your indoor air quality for a good six years.

VOC quite literally means Volatile Organic Compounds. Volatile, as in explode. I’m not using scare tactics here, I’m simply defining the word. Here’s where it gets all persnickety though. Even though you may have a low VOC paint, like Benjamin Moore, the moment they mix in the tint you’ve moved out of the low VOC threshold.

I could go on and on or I could offer you a solution. There’s a new breed of paint in town. Mythic paint. It’s completely free of Volatile Organic Compounds and they’re putting their money where their mouth is. Mythic Paint is the only Zero Emissions Paint Facility in the county. Seriously, I’m swooning. You make my house pretty and you’re a good neighbor. Does it get better?

Milk Paint has been around for ages but it doesn’t give you that finished look that we enjoy in our living rooms. It also won’t be quite as durable as parents of crayola wielding children need. It’s wonderful for crafts and for a certain type of home, alas not mine.

Here’s the good news about Mythic Paint. (I hope that they are the first of many more to come) You can use their primer to seal away your old toxic paint and it’s lecherous solvents. With 1,200 colors and eight sheens you’ll find what you’re looking for and if your kids get into it you won’t have to take them to the emergency room.

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