By Julia Szabo
Nothing revitalizes a space like a coat or two of paint—and yet, few elements of interior decor are as potentially detrimental to health as interior acrylic latex (i.e., liquid plastic) and the poisons it may off-gas even weeks or months after it’s applied. Appreciating this design dilemma from firsthand experience, a pair of disrupters created Alkemis Paint, the world’s first wellness paint. As beautiful as it is sustainable, the brand was a sleeper hit at last December’s Design Miami/ 2023.
Alkemi is Swedish for alchemy, and Alkemis Paint has achieved an almost magical transformation. The nontoxic house paint actually raises the vibration of a space. How? By coating it with pulverized crystals, including hematite (believed to reduce stress and promote relaxation) and goethite (for soothing energy). Instead of a bright-white foundation, Alkemis has a clear advantage: Its base layer is translucent quartz, imparting luminosity while harmonizing the chakras and bringing the body into balance. Painting interior surfaces with crushed crystals instead of plastic has a grounding effect one can see and feel.
All-natural, nontoxic, mineral-based paint with zero volatile organic compounds, Alkemis is formulated with artist-quality pigments. The paint is also mold-, algae- and fungi-resistant, with no synthetic pigments, VOCs, plasticizers/phthalates, solvents, alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs), hazardous organic pollutants (HAPs), perfluoroalkoxies (PFAs), preservatives, fungicides or biocides typically found in other paints. With 119 unique colors formulated from 10 natural pigments—the very materials used to create Roman frescoes and the cave paintings at Lascaux—Alkemis offers a fan deck of hues beautiful enough to satisfy Michelangelo, and so durable that the brand guarantees 20-plus years of fade-free, lightfast coverage.
The Alkemis story began in 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, when New Yorker Maya Crowne surveyed her apartment decor and craved a change, but hesitated “to suffocate my neighbors and myself with noxious fumes.” What she discovered about latex/acrylic paint—“it’s plastic, so it traps moisture in the wall”—gave Crowne a new mission: to create a healthier paint alternative.
Traveling to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to attend a wellness retreat, she connected with LA- and New Mexico–based multidisciplinary artist-designer Price Latimer, whose strictly clean-and-green lifestyle has been her survival mechanism ever since she survived a severe allergic reaction to antibiotics that resulted in chemical sensitivity. “With Maya’s background in finance and mine in art and design, it’s been a wonderful and symbiotic partnership,” Latimer says. Adds Crowne, “We both are passionate about art, design, naturopathic medicine, holistic living and wellness in general.”
Design pros may rest assured that their most discerning colleagues and clients will love Alkemis for its good looks—its luscious velvet matte finish exceeds all expectations—without ever stopping to think of all the good the brand does. Professional painters, meanwhile, appreciate that Alkemis is self-priming, enabling speedier room makeovers. alkemispaint.com