What are VOC’s?

What are VOC’s?
VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound.
According to Wikipeida:
“Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemical compounds that have high enough vapour pressures under normal conditions to significantly vaporize and enter the atmosphere.” VOCs are emitted as gasses from certain solids or liquids.
VOC’s are widely used as ingredients in paints, varnishes, and wax. They are basically the solvents used to carry the pigment in the binder of paint.

As paint dries the VOC’s evaporate producing that ‘newly painted’ smell.
This is also known as Off-gassing. It is damaging to the environment and potentially to your health. Many VOC’s are classified as toxic. They can be responsible for headaches and the feeling of sickness that can result from painting without proper ventilation. Some people are much more sensitive to VOC’s than others. Oil based paints have the highest level of VOC’s and water based paints may still contain VOC’s, though at much lower levels.

Phase I of the European Paints Directive came into place on the 1st January 2007. Paint manufacturers are being forced through legislation to take action to reduce the levels of solvents in their products. The Directive recognizes that VOC’s are the precursors to the formation of ground level ozone (summer smog) and it aims to reduce emissions of VOC’s across the UK and Europe. The most stringent regulations come into place in 2010. It is believed that reductions resulting from the implementation of the Directive will lead to measurable improvements in air quality and public health.

To this end we are seeing more water based, or environmentally friendly and “natural” paints and varnishes on the market. We have always been keen to stock environmentally friendly product and currently stock clay paint from earthBorn which is completely  VOC free. It is manufactured for interior walls, has a very matt chalky finish and is breathable. This means that it can be used on period properties that require a paint that will allow the walls to breath.

Colour No 1 & how to view colour

There are a few problems developing a colour range in paint bases and viewing colours on the web.

I found this out when I mixed an inky blue black (satin finish) for the wooden cladding and shelving in the Burwash Tea Rooms.

Here’s the open tin sitting on the brown paper of our work bench. In this photo you can’t quite see the vibrancy of the colour. Then I put the tin on a piece of white paper…

…and you begin to see the blueness of the colour. I realized that it may be important to view this colour relative to black so that you can really see it’s intensity even though it is so dark.

So I brushed it out on a piece of white paper and put one our black brush outs next to it….

…and you can see the blueness of the colour.

Note: I haven’t done any colour “tweaking”or editing in photoshop. I’ve just cropped the pictures. In the above photo, I find that the white looks a little pink and not true brilliant white.

For the sake of consistency of 52 Colours, I will photograph the colour:

1. In the shade, never in direct sunlight
2. Never use a flash
3. Never edit the colour
4. On or next to white and black.
That’s it for colour No 1.