As soon as Little Sir was old enough to attend Mother’s Day Out, he fell in love with painting. I had been afraid to introduce paints at home due to the mess, but he just LOVED painting so much, even at a year old, that I really wanted to let him paint at home. However, every time I went to the craft store I was crippled by the choices and worried about the ingredients of the paint. Particularly when Little Lady came along and started to show interest in painting too (again, thanks to Mother’s Day Out!), I was worried that she would put the paints in her mouth and I didn’t trust the safety of craft store paints.

Then I discovered Earth Paints!

 Ya’ll, this stuff is so amazing! It’s made from, well, the EARTH! As in, dirt and clay are used to form the pigments for these colors. It is actually a milk-based paint, which is common for eco-friendly kids paints. The problem with most homemade or eco-friendly paints is that their colors are typically very light (think pastel) and watery. Not Earth Paint! Check out the colors of the paints I mixed…

I say that I mixed them because they actually come in powder form. You can add as little or as much water as you need to make them thicker or thinner. If you do want a watercolor-type experience, you can do that. But you can also go for the more tempura paint type pigment.

For the purpose of our first trial of Earth Paints, Little Sir had found a paper towel cardboard tube and was requesting that he be allowed to paint it. If these had been your typical milk paints, the pigment wouldn’t have shown up at all on the dark cardboard. No problem with the Earth Paint!

And, of course, Little Lady wanted to get involved and made quite a masterpiece herself…

You can see from the photos how nice and bold the colors are!

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Why on earth can’t I just use conventional kids’ paint? Jenny, you are super paranoid!”. And it’s true, I am more conscientious than your average consumer, so I asked Leah, creator of Earth Paints, what kinds of things we should be avoiding when it comes to paints. She sent me some great information.

Petroleum derivatives? Fungicides? Bactericides? Unfortunately, just because a label says nontoxic doesn’t mean it’s earth friendly or human friendly…
…After doing extensive research I was shocked to find that many commercial kids paints contain biocides which include formaldehyde and are used to extend the paints shelf life and preserve the ingredients. I also learned that conventional paints may contain hundreds of different chemicals, many of which contain carcinogens or neurotoxins. Even “Low VOC” or “nontoxic” paint may contain fungicides and bactericides that not only cause headaches and dizziness when inhaled but can contribute (little by little) to greenhouse gases.

Leah goes on to describe how some major kids’ paint brand companies would not disclose their ingredients even when asked directly. Scary! So she created Earth Paints as a high quality, safe alternative.

I have to say, I am in love with Earth Paints. When the samples I was given run out, I will be heading over to www.NaturalEarthPaint.com to order more Earth Paint!

I hope you’ll give it a try, too – if you do, please feel free to share photos of your kids enjoying Earth Paint on my Facebook page!

*DISCLOSURE: I was given free samples of Earth Paint for review. All opinions expressed are my own, and my kids’!