A health revolution in the painting industry
The most dangerous air you breathe is inside your own home.
The EPA measured it: 2 to 5 times more polluted indoors than out, even in the countryside. The largest single source is the paint on every wall and ceiling around you. We take it off, and put lime back on.
Start here
The air in your home
is not what you think.
I'm Ben Lynch. I started LimeWash Pros after reading what the EPA had published about the air inside ordinary American houses — and realizing the walls were the problem. Watch this, then stay for the podcast and I'll show you what I found.
Meet LimeWash Pros
Sixty seconds on who we are, what lime does that paint can’t, and why the air in your house is the reason we do this.
The podcast — more episodes coming
- 11:33
From Setback to Limewash Success: Meet Ben Lynch
Why I walked away from conventional paint, what I found in the research on VOCs, and how that turned into LimeWash Pros.
- 12:09
How Modern Paint is Killing You
The VOCs in ordinary latex paint don’t stop off-gassing when the wall dries. What that does to the air in your house, and what the EPA has published about it.
- 9:42
The Carcinogen On Your Walls
Benzene is a known human carcinogen and it is in the paint on every surface of your home. Here is what the research says, and what lime does about it.
The evidence
This isn't a wellness trend.
It's the research.
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2–5×
More polluted inside your home than outside — EPA
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~40%
Of indoor VOCs come from paints and coatings
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22%
Of women with lung cancer never smoked. Men: 2.9%
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20 yrs
Bergen study: cleaning harmed women’s lungs
The problem
You are living inside a sealed chamber.
Every wall and ceiling in your house is coated in paint, and paint seals the surface. At the same time it keeps releasing volatile organic compounds into your rooms — for years after the smell has gone.
Then the cleaners, the candles, the air fresheners. A VOC is a gas, and it is building up in a chamber with nowhere to go, because every surface around you has been sealed.
Read the full argumentThe solution
Zero VOC finishes.
Nothing to off-gas. Ever.
Lime, water and mineral pigment. There is nothing in it to release into your air — and peer-reviewed testing shows lime surfaces pull formaldehyde back out of a room and chemically break it down.
- 01 Interior Limewash The hero of the Zero VOC Home Program. Breathable mineral color that settles into the wall, moves with the light, and has nothing in it to off-gas.
- 02 Venetian Plaster Lime and marble dust, laid by hand. Matte, polished or sandy — four distinct finishes, all of them zero VOC.
- 03 Moroccan Tadelakt A seamless, waterproof lime plaster polished with agate and sealed with olive soap. Built for showers, hammams and wet rooms.
The Zero VOC Home Program
Every wall. Every ceiling.
From $85 a month.
We measure the VOC levels in your home before we start, transition every painted surface to limewash, then measure again — so you see the difference in your own house rather than taking our word for it.
Choose your contract length; longer terms bring the monthly cost down. Entry pricing is for smaller homes and scales with square footage.
Apply for the programOur sister company
We take the bad VOCs out.
Sylvana puts the good VOCs in.
Not every volatile organic compound is working against you. Trees release their own — phytoncides — and the Japanese have practiced shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, in hinoki cypress forests for decades on the strength of what they do to the human body.
A review of field experiments across 420 subjects and 35 forests measured a 12.4% drop in cortisol, lower systolic blood pressure and heart rate, and a 56% rise in natural killer cell activity, the immune system's front line against tumor cells, still 23% elevated a month later.
And it isn't the walk that does it. When researchers vaporized hinoki cypress oil in a hotel room overnight, with no forest anywhere near, they measured the same rise in NK activity and the same fall in stress hormones. It's the compounds. Which means they can be brought to you.
Source: Miyazaki, Ikei & Song, Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi (2014)
Add Sylvana to the Zero VOC Home Program from $65/month, priced on the size of your home.
If the world is the Matrix — we're the red pill. We are very real.
Visit Sylvana
What you get
Held to a written standard.
2-Year Application Warranty
Covers faults and errors in our application process. Does not cover damage from natural causes.
Zero VOC, Zero Synthetics
High-calcium lime, marble dust and mineral pigment. Nothing else.
Custom Color, Locked to You
Tinted for your project and never reused or duplicated on another.
Trade Pricing
For design firms, architects and builders.
Materials & systems
The plasters we work with
We apply and specify the major Venetian plaster and lime systems, and we work across all of them to the same standard. A designer or builder who has already written a product into the spec can hand it to us and have it installed correctly.
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Meoded Paint & Plaster
United States
The largest US manufacturer of Venetian plasters and decorative finishes. Lime and marble-dust systems including Vega, Marmorino and Grassello.
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Firenze Color (Novacolor USA)
Italy / United States
The US arm of Novacolor. Full Italian portfolio — Grassello and Marmorino plasters, microcement floors and metallic effects.
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Novacolor
Italy
Italian decorative-finish house known for sustainable mineral coatings and a deep Marmorino range.
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San Marco Group
Venice, Italy
Fourth-generation Venetian manufacturer, 80+ years in lime plasters. The academy our application methods trace back to.
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Color Atelier
United States
Lime paint and Venetian plaster in a tightly curated mineral color range.
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Modern Masters
United States
Widely specified US decorative-coatings line, including Venetian plaster and metallic systems.
Finishes we apply — tap any to see it
Manufacturer names are listed to describe the systems we apply and specify. LimeWash Pros LLC is an independent applicator and is not an authorized dealer, distributor or agent of these companies. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Request a Quote
Start with a hand-applied sample.
Every project begins with a substrate evaluation, custom color development and a physical sample approved by you — before a single square foot goes on the wall.