What type of paint to choose?Interior, exterior, glycero, acrylic?
The painting radius of your DIY brand, whatever it is, is a bit like the yogurt radius of your supermarket: there is an impressive amount of paintings each with their characteristics, their ways of use, their colors of course, their rendering (mat, satin, brilliant) and their destination supports.So how do you find your way around?
Can an exterior paint be used indoors?
Imagine that you have found the painting that suits you to redo all your shutters, for example, and that you decide to use the bottom of the paint jar to repaint a small stool that is in your living room, know that it is notA good idea at all.
If the painting department distinguishes the paintings intended outside those which are made for the interior of your home, it is not the fruit of chance or a marketing argument, for once!
Paintings for the exterior contain, most of the time, specific chemical additives, such as pesticides, which can be toxic for indoor use.Conversely, the paintings for the interior do not have components ensuring great resistance to UV or humidity: used outside, they would not last long.
Glycero paint or acrylic paint?
Glycero paintings feel strong and force to ventilate well if you paint indoors because they contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are harmful to the environment and for health.They are thus composed of solvents who act a bit like a preservative while waiting for you to use the painting;It is thanks to them that the paint remains liquid in its pot, and that once spread out, they evaporate to make your painting dry.In addition to solvents, painting resins contribute to the adhesion of surface painting.The pigments give the desired shade to the painting.And finally, the additives are a lot of biocides to avoid the formation of fungi and push insects, as well as to allow you to keep several months your jar started hermetically closed.This painting is cleaned up to the white-spirit.
In general, glycero paintings are more resistant than acrylic paints: they are therefore preferred for the outside, whether it is a wood or metal support.
Among these additives, some are specific to interior paints (kaolin) to make them more resistant and others to external paints (zinc oxide) to make them shine and avoid discoloration and mold.
Acrylic paintings are also called water paintings: they are used essentially indoors, probably also because they smell much lower than others, wash in the water and dry faster, but do not forgetto open the windows to avoid poisoning yourself despite the lack of smell.Contrary to what one can imagine, they are not without risk to the environment.They certainly contain less solvents (5 to 20%) which are most often alcohols or glycol ethers, the latter being suspected of having impacts on male fertility.In addition, chronic exposure in your interior, once the painting is over, to these glycol ethers derived from butylglycol, is potentially risky for health.
Another criterion of choice is to be taken into consideration when choosing your painting: this is the environmental pollution linked to the product.Two official labels exist: the European Ecolabel and the NF Environment brand.They are always good to take.Besides, is the label of polluting emissions which resembles those of household appliances: it displays pollutant emissions.As the thresholds retained for these pollutants are very high, it is absolutely necessary to limit ourselves to the paints classified A+ for its emissions of harmful substances: in the absence of 0 emissions, you will limit excessive inhalation.
So be careful to choose your painting well: do not do it lightly and beware of the advice of the sellers, often interested in sales and not by the safety of the products.
