A 'wellness' paint company?
Alkemis uses crystals and natural materials to make healthier paint.
I first heard about Alkemis — “the world’s first wellness paint” — via a post from friend-of-a-friend Price Latimer, who I would run into at L.A. art parties (approx. 300 years ago). Once you meet Price, you don’t forget her thanks to her signature look: doll-pale skin, vixen red lips, black hair, expertly curated vintage outfit. Turns out, Price was posting about her own company, which she co-founded with a partner, Maya Crowne. As a design editor I was instantly intrigued by the term “wellness paint” (what does that even mean??) and got in touch to do an interview with Price and Maya.
Before we get into it, some brief background on these ladies. Maya Crowne was working in finance on Wall Street, decided she was miserable, and went down a path of rediscovery. Holed up with her parents during the pandemic, she decided to paint her bedroom and became consumed with what paint actually is, which, as she puts it, is “essentially liquid plastic.” She started working on a natural paint company proposal and brought in Price, who I can best describe as a “multidisciplinary artistic person” — she’s had her hands in everything from art to furniture and interior design to owning a hip pizza shop.
In 2023, they launched Alkemis: non-toxic, zero-VOC, all-natural, wellness paint. What struck me is that despite using materials like quartz and crystals, which can easily wander into woo-woo territory, Alkemis feels serious. It’s “architectural” paint, not “here’s your easy spring DIY” paint.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation, which has been edited and condensed.
SCHMATTA: Okay, so catch me up on what makes paint so…bad? Is it bad? Educate me.
PRICE: Nobody really thinks about the fact that traditional latex, acrylic, or water-based paint are all made out of plastic and petrochemicals. All of these things that are touted as safe and, you know, “clean” are actually very harmful to us and to the environment. Even paints that are low- or no-VOC, they off-gas for years, so we're breathing in these toxic chemicals. One of the most interesting things we learned is the only reason people have mold problems in their homes is because we're painting our walls with liquid plastic…if there's any condensation, any moisture that gets trapped behind the substrate…there's no way for it to escape.
MAYA: The EPA has no standard to measure the toxicity of paint. So what everyone relies on is this low-VOC, zero-VOC, which is not a quantifier of the health of the paint at all.
SCHMATTA: Wait, VOCs…volatile organic compounds, right? Like what are these “organic compounds”?
MAYA: That's an interesting term. It basically means anything that off-gasses, which can be a lot of different things like additives and fillers. On the flip side, a volatile organic compound isn't necessarily a bad thing. Essential oils have high VOCs because they smell a lot.
SCHMATTA: Got it. Anyhow, you were saying about how nobody really has a standard for paint health/safety…
MAYA: Yeah, the level of greenwashing in the U.S. is pretty egregious…but we also we want to be really mindful about how we talk about this…we don't want to shit-talk these big [paint] brands, but, we do know the facts and the data, and, I mean, it's shocking.
SCHMATTA: I’m kind of fascinated by how you start a paint company. Where do you even begin???
MAYA: We hired some chemists to talk to us about all the different ways that pigments and binders work. I mean, it was kind of hilarious; we found these people on, like, an Upwork but for scientists…they’re this nerdy chemist couple that lives in California and they were doing formulations for all different types of things. They gave us this 40-page report on why you can't use this-with-this.
Coincidentally, we got super lucky within our network — we have been speaking to someone who would like to remain a silent advisor but his whole career has been in research and development for [big paint company]. He's the brother of Price's very close friend. He gave us a lot of interesting feedback and guidance and eventually we found our way to our manufacturer.
SCHMATTA: So let’s get into Alkemis. Can we talk a bit about the ingredients in your paint. Or…can you call them ingredients? You know what I mean. Your site mentions quartz.
PRICE: Alkemis is a mineral-based paint, and mineral paint is inherently breathable. It's inherently eco-friendly because it is made from elements — raw materials, raw minerals, earthen minerals, pigments that come from the earth —that are not synthetic. Nobody's really doing this in the U.S., but people are doing it in Europe.
MAYA: We want to be like a little cautious about [our materials] because we don't want to give away too much of our trade secrets, but basically we used a potassium silicate-type binder, which is the second most plentiful resource available on the earth next to gypsum.
PRICE: And it's also what — sorry to interject, I think this is a really interesting fact — what the earth's crust is made out of. I mean, don't quote me on this, it's something like 80 or 90 percent silicate materials.
SCHMATTA: About your materials — is there any sort of concern ethically or geopolitically about harvesting?
PRICE: All the mining facilities and vendors have to go through audits and environmental impact reports and certifications, so that's why we feel really secure. We are Cradle to Cradle certified, and that certification is so stringent — [you have to meet standards] for material health, product circularity, clean air and climate protection, water and soil stewardship, and social fairness.
SCHMATTA: Tell me about the choice to incorporate the word “wellness” into your mission and branding. I feel like during and post-pandemic, the concept kind of went bananas and people are often employing the term inauthentically, as a buzzword to push product. But what you’re doing feels different — it’s not, like, a new TikTok product, it’s a foundational building material.
MAYA: A lot of these different facts [about traditional paint toxicity] sort of contributed into this overall wellness component, and then on a more tangible and direct level, all of the paints have clear crystal quartz. Price and I are both people who are interested surrounding ourselves with certain things that can be activated with the right types of energies that can help cleanse [spaces]. We are planning to incorporate more in our overall brand messaging around neuroaesthetics —
SCHMATTA: What’s that?
MAYA: Neuroaesthetics are basically the study of color and beauty and how that impacts you as an individual.
PRICE: I’d also say that talking about wellness is not necessarily about buying so many new things — it's like, buy smarter, buy better. If you really want to talk about wellness, then buy the thing that is made out of earth-friendly ingredients, that is, you know, not harmful to you.
Also, our paint is more expensive (I mean, it's less than Farrow &Ball) but it's more expensive than a lot of the brands out there. But, [we’re interested in] shifting this consumer perspective in America: Don't buy the cheapest thing out there that is made of bad ingredients.
SCHMATTA: You only have one finish — matte. Why is that?
PRICE: If you think about it, any rock, any mineral, any crystal in its natural state is matte; it only becomes shiny when it's polished. [Our paints] have a really beautiful, velvet matte finish, but because it's made out of crystals, it also has this luminosity and light reflective value. When you experience it in person, it’s matte but it's simultaneously a little bit sparkly. The light reflective value is off the charts compared to latex and acrylic paint because the binder is clear quartz, so the natural pigment can shine through.
SCHMATTA: Do you guys have a vision for Alkemis to be more than just a home paint brand, but something, I don’t know, that becomes standard in hospitals?
PRICE: Healthcare is very high up on the list. Every hospital you go into is painted with traditional latex or acrylic so how can we talk about getting better both physically, emotionally, and spiritually if we are still surrounding ourselves with toxic ingredients that are harmful to us and really harmful to the earth?
Schmatta is written by Leonora Epstein, a former shelter pub editor-in-chief. Follow at @_leonoraepstein and/or @schmattamag. For consulting and collab requests, please visit my website.