Was considering buying a Groupon for paints, and was running through the scope of paints that the company reps -- Benjamin Moore. Now, anyone that's ever bought BM paints, knows they're expensive, but there's a very good reason why: percentage of titanium dioxide. Really good hiding paints have a higher percentage of titanium dioxide, in the case of interior, light tints. Behr may seem good, but they're cheap paints, even the so-called primer-plus. Some paints are so bad, I can't even mention their names on here.
So how do you find out what's inside the paint? Get the Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), and on it, you will see the list of ingredients, as required by law. Most of the time, you'll see it 10~20% titanium dioxide by volume; nearly all of Benjamin Moore paints have at least 20%, but most have 25% titanium dioxide. Again, there is a manufacturer whose interior paint has 5%, and that's bad.
Low VOC - being the most expensive but the lowest odor - is the most expensive, and if you live in California, you have no choice. But in most other places, you'll be able to get higher VOC content paint for half the price of BM's no-VOC or low-VOC paints. To me, the only time high VOCs are a problem, are when oil-based paints are being used. Acrylic-based paints aren't that much of a problem, but oh boy can you smell oil-based paints from hundreds of feet away! There was this renovation job several years ago in my neighborhood, and for several weeks, every time I walked past the open windows from across the street, I could smell the paint. I chalked that one up to a probable case of an architectural office full of inexperienced interns and licensed architects not paying attention.
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