About Ekopaints

While helping friends renovate their 19th century villa in Sweden a few years ago, I was introduced by them to this amazing Linseed Oil Paint that I had never heard of before in New Zealand!

After painting a couple of rooms in their house with the Linseed Oil Paint and became very interested in it and then began my mission to bring this great product back to the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Ekopaints now sells Ottosson Linseed Oil Paint exclusively in Australia and New Zealand, which is produced in Sweden. It comes in a range of outdoor and indoor paints, and in a wonderful and original range of colours.

The paints Ekopaints sells are made from linseed oil and pigment, nothing else, so it is sustainable, renewable and non-toxic, so it is great for the Environment. Linseed oil paint soaks into wood and plaster surfaces so it provides a far better protection that conventional paints like Acrylic that only stick to the surface. There is no need for primers with our paint and brushes are easily to clean and keep in tip-top shape by cleaning with linseed oil.

By volume linseed oil paint is slightly more expensive than conventional paint, but because it is organic the molecules in the paint stretch much more than conventional paint (which are basically plastic molecules). This means our paint can be applied much thinner, which means it spreads 2 to 3 times further, so our paint works out to be 50% less in cost than conventional paints!

Being non-toxic, our paint is also great to work with and it provides a non-toxic environment to living in.

From the mid 1500s to the 1950s, linseed oil paint was…

…the predominant paint material in Europe as well. After the war, the chemical industry developed the techniques of producing plastic and alkyd paints. Everything spiraled fast from there on. In a few years, new plastic and alkyd paints came to dominate the market. What is the difference, then, between linseed oil paint and alkyd paint?

Comparing linseed oil paint to alkyd paint is like comparing chalk to cheese

Alkyd paint has nothing in common with linseed oil paint. The adhesive in alkyd paint is usually so thick and viscous that it requires high quantities of health hazardous solvents to be applicable. Boiled linseed oil, the adhesive in our linseed oil paint, is already of low viscosity and penetrates the surface in a superior way compared to other adhesives as it has lower surface tension than water. This is the reason why linseed oil paint does not need any solvents.

Linseed oil paint is curing

Apart from giving the painted surface a beautiful shine, it also cures the material. Water-soluble paints form a film on top of the material you paint, whereas linseed oil paint is joined with it. This means that linseed oil paint protects wood from rot, plaster from erosion and iron from corrosion. At the same time it lasts longer and gets more beautiful over time.

Painting with linseed oil is painting in harmony with the environment

The past 20 years have been characterized by concerns for the environment. This has been to our advantage in many ways as linseed oil meets many of the criteria demanded of an environmentally friendly product.

Flax can be grown and does not deplete our resources. Linseed oil is bio-degradable without any harmful waste. Linseed oil paint can almost always be applied without the addition of solvents.

It is said that if the paint is water-soluble, it is harmless. The term water-soluble is misleading as the paint is not based on water, it is just soluble in water. The water-soluble paint is based on entirely different chemical substances and what needs to be assessed is the affect these substances have on people and the environment.