An Honest James Alexander Natural Paint Review: A Year Later

A year ago, we spent the summer tackling several DIY projects to freshen up our home. We did lots of painting and several of our painting projects used James Alexander Paint, a natural zero-VOC botanical paint. How has it held up in high traffic areas?

One of the concerns we initially had with using natural, eco-friendly paint of any kind is coverage and another is durability.

We were thrilled with the coverage of the James Alexander Paint.

Only time would tell on the durability. In our modest 1200 square-foot home for our family of four, all the space gets used to the full.

Our family grew a little bigger in February with a new puppy, Theo, too!

Now that it's a year later, let's take a look at how they held up.

Projects

A year ago, we used their Thrive botanical paint for the following projects:

• DIY $300 No-Demo Purple Bathroom Makeover - The walls of the bathroom and bathroom closet were painted with James Alexander Thrive Paint in the color Plum Noir.
• Tiny Texas Entryway Makeover with DIY Shoe Closet - The walls were painted with James Alexander Thrive Paint in the color Milchkaffee. The closet and trim used a different brand.
• Will it cover? Zero-VOC Natural Ceiling Paint DIY Project in Dining Room and Kitchen - all the paint used (besides primer) was James Alexander Thrive Paint in the color Snowdrop.

Please take a look at those posts for all the details on supplies we used and why we chose natural paint.

How it held up - Entryway

We painted the walls of the entryway (arguably the most high traffic area of the house) in a soft golden wheat color called Milchkaffee.

Before taking these photos below, I used a soft cloth to wipe the walls. That's all I had to do to freshen them up!

I wipe carefully with this matte paint, though, because if I'm too rough with it, the paint will start to come off on the cloth.

Overall, it held up very well in our entryway!

How it held up - Bathroom

The walls of the home's only bathroom, along with the bathroom closet walls, were painted with Thrive paint in the color Plum Noir.

We have textured walls throughout our home, so they chip relatively easily. (You can see evidence of this in the photo of our puppy, where we have some white chips showing on the brick red wall of our dining room. This is painted with Behr Premium paint and still flakes off when it gets bumped. So, this is a problem we have, no matter what type of paint is used.)

You'll see a few tiny white speckles near the light switch, where we're reaching in to turn the light on in the dark and missing the switch. Or, bumping it with a broom handle, that sort of thing.

All it took was 5 minutes of quick touch-ups to make it good as new again. You can see the before and after below.

This paint help us extremely well in our bathroom!

How it held up - Kitchen & Dining Ceiling

We also painted the ceiling of our kitchen and dining room with Thrive paint in the color Snowdrop.

In the original post, you can see the ceiling stains from prior water damage that we were trying to cover.

I'm happy to report that the ceiling still looks fresh and new, a year later.

Bottom line

Would I recommend James Alexander Thrive Paint for your next project? Wholeheartedly, yes!

It's a feel-good, no worry paint that covers beautifully and will stand up to day-to-day life in your home.