Decades ago, painters recognised a good paint by its intense solvent odour. That changed when indoor water-borne coatings with low emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were introduced. Organic compounds contained in coating materials are subdivided into VOCs, semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) and non-volatile organic compounds (NVOCs). Unfortunately, different regulations and private labels use different definitions for VOCs and SVOCs. This differentiation may be based on boiling point, vapour pressure or, for practical reasons, the retention time of a marker compound in the chromatographic method used for identification. The Paints Directive [1] was introduced to set specific VOC ...