baba kelp-based paints

Baba Seaweed Paints are non-toxic, biodegradable paints made from giant kelp and natural ingredients. Developed by Casa Tamarindo as an alternative to industrial acrylics and other toxic binders.

Most paint is liquid plastic. Conventional acrylics shed microplastics into the water every time a brush is rinsed, and offgas volatile organic compounds into the air while they dry. The art supply industry asks artists to make work about the world while quietly poisoning it.

Baba is built from kelp. Giant kelp — the Sequoia of the Seas — grows up to twenty inches a day off the coast of Las Californias, sequesters carbon as it grows, and removes contaminants from the ocean through bioremediation. It also makes paint. Processed into a binder and mixed with mineral pigments and other natural ingredients, kelp produces a paint that looks and behaves like acrylic without the petrochemistry. It dries flat. It holds color. It washes off in water that goes back into the water cycle clean.

The line is seasonal. The kelp is harvested locally and the recipes are kept short — as few ingredients as possible, all of them traceable to a place. The product is in active development; new colors and applications are tested as the research advances.

Baba sits inside the studio's longer investigation of seaweed as a design material — alongside parallel work on lighting, biomaterial sheets, and architectural skins.