Compared
Romabio vs Portola vs The White House Blend
Three real limewashes sold in the United States. We make one of them, so read this knowing that — but we have also applied all of this material on client walls, which most people writing these comparisons have not.
Here is the honest version: on chemistry these are more alike than the marketing suggests. All three are genuine slaked lime rather than an acrylic pretending to be lime. What actually separates them is price, how you buy it, and who tinted it.
Price per gallon
| Romabio Classico | Portola Lime Wash | The White House Blend™ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per gallon | ~$64.26 | $60–$80 | $50 |
| Best per-gallon price | ~$64.26 (4-gal bucket) | Varies by retailer | $45 (5-gal pail, $225) |
| Shipping | Varies; often in-store pickup | Charged | Free, nationwide |
| Colour | Fixed heritage deck | Designer palette | Hand-tinted to your colour |
| Where you buy it | Home Depot, Lowe’s, Amazon | Portola and stockists | Direct from us |
| Made by | A manufacturer | A paint house | A lime finishing company |
| Support included | Product documentation | Product documentation | Full application course |
Competitor prices checked September 2026 — Romabio from the four-gallon bucket listed at Home Depot, Portola from commonly published retail. Retail pricing moves and varies by stockist. Check before you rely on it.
The two reasons people buy the other two — and what they cost you
“Romabio is on the shelf today”
True, and it is the one thing we cannot match. If you are mid-project on a Saturday afternoon, a store beats any website.
Here is what that Saturday costs: about $19 more per gallon, a colour from a fixed deck instead of the one you wanted, and shipping that is usually either charged or an in-store pickup. On a five-gallon job that convenience runs you roughly $95.
If your project can wait three business days, you are paying ninety-five dollars to avoid waiting three business days.
“I love a specific Portola colour”
Colour is the least rational part of this decision and the most important one. We would never tell you to settle on a colour to save money.
But look at what you are actually choosing between: a manufacturer’s best guess at a shade you will accept, or the exact colour you want, mixed by hand. Every pail we ship is tinted to order — from a photograph, a fabric swatch, a stone sample, or a wall you already have and want to match.
Including, if that is what you want, the Portola shade. Send us the colour and we will match it.
What you get here instead
$45 a gallon in the five-gallon pail — roughly 30% below Romabio’s shelf price. Free shipping anywhere in the United States. Tinted by hand to your colour. The full application course included. A lifetime warranty on the material for interior work.
And it is made by the company that applies these finishes for a living, for clients whose names you would recognise. Romabio and Portola are manufacturers. They have never troweled anyone’s wall.
Why ours costs less
It is a fair question and the answer is not that it is thinner.
Romabio and Portola price to support a retail chain. Before a tin reaches you it has paid a distributor and a retailer, and both take a margin. That is the cost of being able to drive to a store and pick it up — a real benefit, honestly priced.
We sell direct, from the people who make it. There is no chain to pay. You are not buying less lime, you are skipping three markups. That is the entire difference.
The part people underestimate is the tinting. A deck is a manufacturer’s best guess at the colours most people will accept. Every pail we send is mixed by hand to the colour you asked for — the same way we match a colour on a client’s wall, which we do most weeks.
The thing no brand comparison will tell you
Brand is not your biggest variable. Preparation and technique are.
Lime bonds mechanically — it keys into a porous surface. Painted drywall is not porous. Whichever brand you buy, an interior drywall project generally needs a mineral primer or a skim coat first, or the finish will not hold the way it should. Anyone selling you limewash for drywall without mentioning that is selling you a callback.
The same goes for the brush. A proper masonry brush and the right movement make more difference to the finished wall than which of these three tins you opened. That is why every order of The White House Blend includes the full application course — it is the part that actually decides whether your wall looks like lime or like flat paint.
Common questions
What is the difference between Romabio, Portola and The White House Blend?
Romabio is an Italian slaked-lime limewash distributed in the United States through Home Depot, Lowe's and Amazon, sold in a fixed heritage colour deck. Portola Paints is a Los Angeles paint house whose Lime Wash series is known for designer-led colour. The White House Blend is made by LimeWash Pros, a lime finishing company — we apply these materials professionally and make our own, tinted by hand to your colour rather than picked from a deck. As of September 2026 ours is the least expensive of the three per gallon, and the only one that ships free.
How much does limewash cost per gallon?
Checked in September 2026: Romabio Classico works out to about $64 a gallon bought as a four-gallon bucket at Home Depot, and Portola Lime Wash is commonly quoted between $60 and $80 a gallon. The White House Blend is $50 a gallon, or $45 a gallon bought as the five-gallon pail, with free shipping anywhere in the United States. Retail prices move, so check before you rely on any of these figures.
Is cheaper limewash worse limewash?
Not automatically, and here it is not a quality decision — it is a distribution one. Romabio and Portola price to support a retail chain: the shelf, the distributor and the retailer all take a margin before the tin reaches you. We sell direct from the people who make it, so there is no chain to pay. You are not buying a thinner product, you are skipping three markups.
Which limewash is best for exterior brick?
All three are real slaked lime rather than a lime-look acrylic, and all three bond to masonry. Romabio has the longest American retail track record on exterior brick, which is worth acknowledging. What it does not have is a price under $60 a gallon, free freight, or a colour mixed to your house rather than to a deck. On a typical brick exterior you are buying five gallons or more, which is where the difference stops being theoretical: at $45 a gallon delivered, The White House Blend saves you around $95 on the same job, and we will match whatever colour you had in mind.
Can you use limewash on interior drywall?
Yes, but substrate preparation matters more than brand. Lime bonds mechanically into a porous surface, and painted drywall is not porous. Whatever brand you buy, interior drywall generally needs a mineral primer or a skim coat to give the lime something to key into. Anyone selling you limewash for drywall without mentioning preparation is selling you a callback.
Why is The White House Blend tinted by hand?
Because we are a finishing company before we are a paint company, and matching a colour to a room is what we do on client projects every week. A colour deck gives you the manufacturer's best guess at what people want. Hand tinting gives you the colour you actually asked for. It is also why every order ships within three business days rather than off a shelf.
Does limewash need a special brush?
A good masonry brush, and it makes more difference than most people expect. Brand of paint is a smaller variable than brush quality and technique. Every order of The White House Blend includes the full application course, which covers brush selection, dilution and the movement that makes lime look like lime rather than like flat paint.
Work out what you need
One gallon covers about 300 square feet at one coat, or 140 at two — and two coats is what we recommend on nearly every interior. Use the calculator to size your room properly, then choose a size below. Every order ships free within the United States, tinted to your colour, within three business days.
See sizes & prices Work out my square footage
$50 a gallon. $225 for the five-gallon pail — $45 a gallon. Free shipping, every size, anywhere in the United States.
The real difference between limewash and paint
It is not the look. It is what you are breathing for the next ten years.
Paint is pigment suspended in a synthetic binder, and that binder has to stay liquid in the tin and then harden on your wall. The chemistry that makes that possible is the chemistry that leaves the wall afterwards — into the room.
“Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors.”
US Environmental Protection Agency — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
The EPA names the sources plainly — “paints, varnishes and wax all contain organic solvents”, alongside paint strippers and other solvents. And the spike during the work itself is not a rounding error:
“During and for several hours immediately after certain activities, such as paint stripping, levels may be 1,000 times background outdoor levels.”
EPA — VOCs’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality
What that exposure is associated with, again in the EPA’s own words: “eye, nose and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination and nausea; damage to liver, kidney and central nervous system” — and that “some organics can cause cancer in animals, some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans.”
Read it yourself
We would rather you checked than took our word for it. These are the primary sources, not somebody’s summary of them.
- EPA — Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air QualityThe ten-times figure, the source list, the 1,000× spike and the health effects.
- EPA — Technical Overview of Volatile Organic CompoundsHow VOCs are defined and regulated — and why “low-VOC” on a tin is a narrower claim than it sounds.
- Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dynamics and Health ImplicationsPeer-reviewed, open access. Water-based does not mean VOC-free, and this is the work that shows why.
- Yearlong study of indoor VOC variabilityPeer-reviewed. How indoor VOC exposure behaves across a whole year, not just on painting day.
Limewash has none of it
High-calcium lime, mineral pigment, purified aggregates, water. No synthetic binder, because lime does not need one — it hardens by reacting with the air, not by a solvent leaving the film.
Nothing in the tin has to evaporate out of your wall, so there is nothing to off-gas. This is not a reformulated low-VOC version of a solvent product. It is a material that never had solvents in it to begin with.
Two ways to get it out of your house
Do a room yourself. The White House Blend™ is $50 a gallon, $225 for the five-gallon pail, shipped free anywhere in the United States and tinted by hand to your colour — with the full application course included and a lifetime warranty on the material for interior work.
Or do the whole house. The Zero VOC Home Program measures the VOC levels in your home, transitions every painted wall and ceiling to zero-VOC limewash, then measures again — so you see the difference rather than take it on faith. From $85 a month.
Who we are
Thirty seconds, then stay for the podcast.
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.
Meet LimeWash Pros
Who we are, what lime does that paint cannot, and why the air inside your house is the reason we do this.
The podcast
11:33From 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.
12:10How 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.
9:43The Carcinogen On Your Walls
Benzene is a known human carcinogen and it is in the paint on every surface of your home. What the research says.