Milk paint is made from milk casein, clay, earth pigments, and lime. Now you know. It has a different finish from latex- and oil-based paints, which is one reason we didn’t want to jump right in. It also spoils (since it’s primarily whole milk), so you either have to get it locally (and there’s nobody around here who does it) or buy a powdered version online. Or, of course, try to make our own, but we didn’t feel like we had the time to experiment.

I also hear good things about Mythic brand paint, which is supposed to be no-VOC and non-carcinogenic. They advertise it as good for the environment, people, and pets. But of course, they don’t list their ingredients and there’s nobody local who sells it to ask, so I can’t evaluate that claim directly.

Paint is paint. Low-VOC, no-VOC, unless I know what the ingredients are it is neither environmentally-friendly nor natural. I’m almost positive that even a no-VOC paint still requires chemical processing with plenty of chemicals I wouldn’t want to handle, but maybe I’m wrong. Natural plaster I would not have any worry about.

We’re painting two rooms (in two different colors). One is 350 sq feet (so two gallons for two coats) and the other is about 200 sq feet (so 1 gallon for two coats).

I’d add “quality” to your breakdown of options. We’re very sure about the quality of the paint we’ve got. We’re less sure about the quality of a colored plaster, although it is something we’ll try to experiment with in the future.

I’m not sure what you mean about an environmental record worth advertising. There are several types of paint that are just as good as plaster environmentally (although the paint we’re using isn’t).

I have seen some cob/SB places with one layer of plaster, which cracked a lot, but the ones I have seen with 2 differing earthen plasters were much higher quality, easier to clean if needed, and not cracky.

As for finding quotes on plasters, I didn’t even imagine that was possible. It’s so rare in this country that I would think just finding the right ratios of material and pricing them out separately would be best. It’s usually just 2 different grains of sand, chopped straw, and clay. The one I helped out on just had ratios of how many bucketloads to put in the mixer, turn it on for about 10 minutes, and the sludge that came out was an amazing plaster that stuck easily to the straw walls. I imagine that you could adapt an old plaster wall to accept new plaster by gouging it (to increase surface area) and then just applying the new plaster.

I don’t know how much you are painting, but I know the cheapest of cheap Walmart paints around here are about $11 per gallon. Are you only doing a small section for $200 of good quality paint? It seems like your options can be torn into 3 sections: price, ease, and environmental. Obviously the cheap paint is easy, but probably doesn’t last and has wonderful chemicals in it. The expensive paint is pricey but has less chemicals and is still easy. A natural plaster is not nearly as easy, although I wouldn’t say it’s hard either, it just takes more time, the price can range wildly depending on the source, but it is the only option that really has an environmental record worth advertising.

Jessica -
Thanks for the link! There are so many choices out there, it gets pretty overwhelming. I would like to play with milk paint sometime in the future but it sounds like it has a sort of antiquey look on most finishes that I want to see in person before I commit to painting a room with it. There’s also the issue that our plaster walls were previously painted so we’d have to do some prep work (and I always wonder if the “bonding agents” are as eco-friendly as the paint). I love the idea of no-VOC paint but I couldn’t find any in Bloomington. We could order some on-line but the idea of buying paint sight unseen seemed a little strange. The prices also seemed pretty high. But I’ll see if I can’t do some more research before our next remodeling (although I’m hoping it’s a long way off!).