ZAVORÉ
ZAVORÉ
✦
Where Artistry Begins
Fine Italian lime plasters for the roman clay look·Supplied in the colours listed on each product·Tracked delivery across the UK and worldwide·Clay Plaster installed by our own team across the UK·Speak to a specialist · 07592 929191·Fine Italian lime plasters for the roman clay look·Supplied in the colours listed on each product·Tracked delivery across the UK and worldwide·Clay Plaster installed by our own team across the UK·Speak to a specialist · 07592 929191·
Clay Plaster · Roman Clay in Lime

Clay plaster walls, the Roman clay look, in real lime

Clay plaster is a soft, matt, faintly mottled wall finish laid by hand, the look sold in America as roman clay. We sell the fine Italian lime plasters that give the same close toned depth and suit British walls better.

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✓ In the colours listed on each product ✓ Secure checkout ✓ Order by 12pm · ships in 24hrs
Clay PlasterVenetian PlasterTadelaktMicrocementSculptural PlasterArtificial RockMetallic PaintsLimewashEst. 2021 Clay PlasterVenetian PlasterTadelaktMicrocementSculptural PlasterArtificial RockMetallic PaintsLimewashEst. 2021
5
Years serving
the trade
7
Finishes in
the range
Worldwide
Tracked
shipping
24h
Shipping, ordered
by 12pm
Zavoré

Providing luxury finishes for the most prestigious addresses in the world

Explore the House

Three ways into clay plaster

Buy the materials and tools, have our own team install them, or start with a sample board. Every clay plaster finish is supplied and installed by Zavoré.

01 · Supply

Materials & Tools

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02 · Installation

Installed by Our Team

See our work
03 · Sample

A Sample Board

Order a sample
Bestsellers

The roman clay look, in real lime

We do not sell clay. These are the fine Italian lime plasters behind the look, with what goes under and over them.

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Where The House Has Worked

Clay Plaster delivered, UK and worldwide

Each dot is a project the house has installed. Clay Plaster ships tracked across the UK and worldwide. Turn the globe and click a dot to see where it is.

Projects installed
Where It Belongs

Where clay plaster belongs

A finish is chosen the way a fine fabric is chosen, by how it looks and how it feels under the hand. These are the rooms and surfaces clay plaster suits best.

Explore All Our Finishes
Colour

Clay plaster colours, as listed on each product

Clay plaster comes in the colours listed on each product, so you choose from what is real.

✦Listed colours

Every product shows the colours it comes in, before you order.

✦Sample board

Order a board and live with it on the wall before you order the room.

✦Batch record

We keep a record of your batch, so a second order gets as close as the material allows.

Order a sample boardPlaster finishes dry lighter than the colour you picked, often by around 20%, as the lime cures. A screen will never match a wall exactly.
Try Before You Buy

Samples, before you commit

Order a clay plaster sample board and see it in your own room, in daylight and in lamplight, before you commit a whole wall.

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Order by 12pm · ships within 24 hours
Selected Work

Clay Plaster, on our walls

Photographs of our own clay plaster projects will be added here as they complete.

The Gallery

The house at work
Colour

The colour library
Samples

A sample board in your colour
Installation

Book a survey
The Journal

Clay Plaster, written down
Installation

Clay Plaster, installed by our own team

This is the friendliest of our finishes to lay yourself. There is no burnishing to get wrong, and the material is patient. If a patch goes badly you can work back over it. What catches people out is scale and edges: holding the mottle consistent across a big wall, and cutting a clean line at the ceiling. If you would rather hand the room over, see our installations or ring 07592 929191.

Step One · Survey · Across the UK

The Survey

Tell us about the room and our own team comes to see the wall before anything is specified.

Surveyed ByOur own team
CoverageAcross the UK
ProjectsResidential and commercial
See how installation works
Survey / on site
Book a Survey
Step Two · Specification

The Specification

We specify the clay plaster, the preparation and the colour for the surface you actually have, so the finish suits the wall it goes on.

Specified ByOur own team
MaterialClay Plaster
Speak To Us07592 929191
Email sales@zavore.co.uk
Specify / for your wall
Ask Us
Step Three · Installation

The Installation

The same team lays it, residential and commercial, anywhere in the UK.

Installed ByOur own team
CoverageAcross the UK
ShowroomBy appointment
See our installations
Install / by our team
More Info
✦ Surveyed, specified and installed by our own team ✦Residential and commercial projects, anywhere in the UK.
Rather Do It Yourself?

We supply, too.

Every clay plaster material on this page ships tracked across the UK and worldwide, and a working installer picks up the phone, Monday to Saturday.

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5Years of
Craft
The Material

What clay plaster
actually is

Roman clay is a trade name more than it is a material.

In this country the same look, chalky, low sheen, colour moving gently across the wall, is a fine lime plaster, and that is what we supply. Intonachino is a fine lime with a light grain in it, laid in two thin coats and left matt. Stucco suede is smoother, and reads like brushed fabric as the light moves across it. Both are mineral: tinted through rather than coated, set by carbonating in air rather than drying like paint, and breathable, which matters on old solid walls that need to let moisture move. True clay plasters do exist and are lovely. They also stay water soluble.

A. ZavoréFounder & Master Applicator
Clay Plaster · 01

Roman clay, honestly

Roman clay is an American shelf name. It covers a family of products ranging from genuine clay plasters to thickened paints sold in a tub with a plastic spreader taped to the lid. If that is the phrase you searched, what you almost certainly want is the finish rather than the chemistry: flat, powdery looking, soft tonal drift, no shine. In Italy that finish is made with lime and has been for a very long time. We would rather tell you that than print a clay label on a lime bag. The practical difference is that lime hardens and will take a wipe and a knock, where unstabilised clay stays soluble and goes back to mud under a wet cloth.

Clay Plaster · 02

What we would send you

Which of ours you want depends on how much texture you can live with. Intonachino carries a fine grain, so the wall catches the light and reads a little like stone dust. It is the closest to most roman clay photographs. Stucco suede is finer and softer, with a longer sweep to the mottling, and suits a bedroom where you want the wall to stay quiet. If your reference picture is really just a chalky, colour washed wall with brush movement in it, lime paint is the right answer and far less work. Send us the image you have been staring at and we will tell you which of the three it is.

Clay Plaster · 03

Laying it, and what it forgives

It goes over a primed wall in two thin coats with a stainless trowel, the second worked while it is still open so the edge of each pass softens into the last. The skill is mostly in leaving it alone. Clay look walls are ruined by fussing, which burnishes patches and gives you shiny islands in a matt wall. Corners and the line where wall meets ceiling need a steady hand, because there is no shine to distract the eye from a wander. It is forgiving of a slightly uneven surface in a way a polished finish never is, which makes it a sound choice over old lime walls that will never be truly flat.

Clay Plaster · 04

Living with a matt lime wall

A matt mineral wall is not wipe clean vinyl. It shrugs off a knock better than people expect, and it can be patched, which emulsion cannot. A repair in the same tinted material knits in and fades out over a few weeks. Greasy marks are the awkward ones: fingerprints round a light switch, cooking film drifting out of a kitchen. Rinfresca is the cleaner we use for that. In a hallway with a dog and a pushchair we would still fit it, but we would seal the lower part of the wall and say beforehand that the sheen will be slightly different where we have.

Clay Plaster · 05

Colour, and why it looks deeper

Because the colour is tinted through the plaster and the surface is faintly irregular, the wall hands you two or three shades of the same colour at once, depending on where you stand and where the lamp is. That is the whole reason people want this, and it is why a flat emulsion mixed to the same reference always looks dead beside it. Earth colours, bone, clay pink, olive, warm stone, do the most with it. Deep saturated colours work, but they need more material and a longer look at a sample. We tint from your NCS, RAL or fan deck reference, so a second order matches. Our colours page sets out what we need.

Where It Is The Wrong Answer

Where clay plaster is the wrong answer

Not inside a shower and not as a bath splashback. That is tadelakt work. Not on the kitchen wall directly behind a hob, where grease will find the texture and stay in it. Not on a damp wall until the damp itself has been dealt with, because the wall will tell on you within a year. And not if what you really want is a surface you can scrub weekly with a cloth and a bleach spray.

Order a sample board at £8 in the colour you keep coming back to, live with it on the wall for a week, then order the room. Or ring 07592 929191 and we will arrange a visit.
Order a Sample Board
The House Timeline

Five years, one standard

2021

The First Walls

The work starts in Birmingham under another name. Inside the first year it reaches London, Manchester, Kent and Surrey.

2022

The Team Grows

Three new members join the studio, giving us the hands to take on larger projects without dropping the standard of the finish.

2023

The Academy & The Supply Line

The Academy opens its doors, and a supply agreement is signed with our materials producer. Quality secured at the source.

2024

The Commercial Turn

The workshop makes its name in commercial decorative finishes across the UK, quietly supplying fellow applicators and proving every material on its own projects before it went on sale.

2025

The Range Goes Public

Tested on the job, refined and trusted by the trade first, our own materials go on open sale to the public.

2026

The Name Goes Up

Five years of work, one supply line and one school, finally under a single name. Zavoré: the full range, the Academy and the Colour Library in one place, and the next wall always ahead.

✦Est. 2021
An independent house, family run since day one
ItalyMilled
Venetian plaster from Italian mills, in the Venetian tradition
3In One House
Materials, installation and training, under one roof
✦Showroom
Visit by appointment and see every finish in person
24hDispatch
Order by 12pm and it ships within 24 hours wherever we can
Beyond Clay Plaster

We also craft every other finish

Venetian plaster leads the house, and our team installs every finish below.

Venetian PlasterThe house finish Polished PlasterStucco veneziano MarmorinoLime and marble grain TravertinoTravertine effect LimewashBreathable lime TadelaktMoroccan lime MicrocementSeamless surfaces Concrete EffectBeton stucco Liquid MetalMetallic plaster Artificial RockStone effect plaster Sculptural PlasterReady made and bespoke Bas ReliefSculpted by hand MosaicsDesigned and installed MuralsPainted by hand GildingGold and silver leaf Lacquered WallsHigh gloss lacquer Cornice & CovingFitted, restored and matched Feature WallsEvery finish, one team The HouseEvery finish, one home
For The Trade

Trade accounts for plasterers and decorators

Approved decorators, plasterers, contractors and designers buy with a Zavoré trade account. Ten percent off every material, taken off automatically the moment you are signed in to your trade account, consistent colour on every Venetian plaster reorder, colour matching to any reference, and the members only Rewards Room, where every pound counts towards titles and rewards. Academy students walk in the day they finish their course.

Open a Trade Account The Rewards Room
Before You Order

Your questions, answered honestly

Roughly, but neither term is precise. Roman clay is an American product name covering everything from real clay to thickened paint in a tub. Clay plaster proper is clay bound and stays water soluble. What both usually mean to the eye is a soft matt mineral wall, and in Italy that is made with lime, which is what we supply.
No. We supply Italian lime plasters, intonachino and stucco suede, because they give the same look and live better in a British house. Lime hardens as it carbonates, takes a wipe and can be patched invisibly. Unstabilised clay softens with water, which rules it out of hallways, kitchens and anywhere near a bathroom.
On general bathroom walls a sealed lime finish copes with steam and the odd splash without complaint. In the shower itself, or behind a basin tap, we use tadelakt instead, which is made to live under water. We would rather move you onto the right material than sell you a repair job in a year.
Intonachino is £200 for 24kg and stucco suede is £200, both tinted to your colour. Primer is £10. How far a bag goes depends on the wall and the number of coats, so send us the room sizes and we will work the quantity out with you. Installation is quoted per job.
Delivery
FreeCollect from the studio
£50Zavoré personal delivery, Birmingham and an hour around us
By weightUK tracked courier, priced at checkout
By quoteInternational delivery, email us for a price
£150Emergency same day between Manchester and London. We go further for an additional charge

Delivery is charged on every order that ships, and collection from the studio is free. We deliver nationally and internationally. UK delivery is priced at checkout by weight. International delivery is quoted for each order, so email sales@zavore.co.uk with what you need and where it is going and we will send you a price.

Look at our delivery options
The Zavoré Journal

Clay Plaster, written down

Five years of technique, published openly. We would rather you got it right first time than had to buy the material twice.

Clay Plaster 7 min read

Clay Plaster vs Lime Plaster, How to Choose, Room by Room

Clay dries and can be rewetted; lime cures hard and tolerates water. How the two differ on breathability, colour and repair, and which rooms suit which.

Read Article
Clay Plaster 6 min read

Roman Clay vs Venetian Plaster, What Is Actually Different

Roman clay is an American trade name, not an Italian material. What it really is, how it compares with lime Venetian plaster, and which finish gives...

Read Article
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30 Days, Damage On Us

If it arrives broken, send a photograph and we replace it. If anything is ever wrong with your order we will happily replace it.

Tracked 24hr Dispatch

Fully insured and tracked to your door or site, anywhere in the UK and worldwide. International orders, including Europe, are quoted by email before they ship. Write to sales@zavore.co.uk for a price.

Real Human Support

Ring us and a working installer picks up, Mon to Sat. Ask which finish suits your wall, how much you need, or what to do when you are mid job. No call centres, no scripts.

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The Zavoré Journal

Techniques, releases & course dates

One considered email a month. Finish breakdowns, new materials, and first access to course seats.

Near You

Clay plaster near you

Clay plaster in London·Clay plaster in Birmingham·Clay plaster in Manchester·Clay plaster in Glasgow·Clay plaster in Liverpool·Clay plaster in Nottingham·Clay plaster in Kent·Clay plaster in Essex·Clay plaster in Surrey

Clay plaster in Leeds·Clay plaster in Bristol·Clay plaster in Sheffield·Clay plaster in Edinburgh·Clay plaster in Cardiff·Clay plaster in Oxford·Clay plaster in Cambridge·Clay plaster in Brighton and Hove·Clay plaster in Leicester·Clay plaster in Newcastle upon Tyne·Clay plaster in Bath·Clay plaster in York·Clay plaster in Cheltenham·Clay plaster in Coventry·Clay plaster in Reading·Clay plaster in Milton Keynes·Clay plaster in Southampton·Clay plaster in Bournemouth·Clay plaster in Exeter·Clay plaster in Norwich·Clay plaster in Derby·Clay plaster in Harrogate·Clay plaster in Chester·Clay plaster in Belfast·Clay plaster in Aberdeen·Clay plaster in Swansea·Clay plaster in St Albans·Clay plaster in Windsor·Clay plaster in Plymouth·Clay plaster in Winchester

Elsewhere in the UK, see every area we cover. Want to learn it? See the Clay plaster course.

Questions & Answers

More questions, answered

What is the difference between lime plaster and clay plaster?
Lime hardens by taking carbon dioxide from the air, while clay stays water soluble. A lime plaster takes a wipe and can be patched, whereas an unstabilised clay softens under a wet cloth. Both can give a soft matt wall, and we supply lime. Read clay plaster vs lime plaster for more.
Can clay plaster go in a kitchen?
Yes on walls away from the cooker, but not directly behind a hob. Grease finds the texture and stays in it. A dining area or the far side of the room is a better home for it. If you want a surface to scrub weekly with a cloth and a bleach spray, this is the wrong finish.
Is clay plaster good for a bedroom?
Yes, bedrooms and quiet sitting rooms are where it works best. Stucco suede is finer and softer, with a long quiet mottle, so the wall stays calm. It is matt, with colour moving gently across it and no shine to catch the eye. Order a sample board and live with it first.
Should I choose intonachino or stucco suede for the roman clay look?
Choose intonachino if you want the closest match to most roman clay photographs. It has a light grain, so the wall catches the light a little like stone dust. Stucco suede is smoother and softer, like brushed fabric. Send us your reference image and we will tell you which suits.
Is clay plaster suitable for old solid walls?
Yes, the lime plasters we supply are breathable, so they suit solid walled older houses, where an acrylic would form a film. The finish is forgiving of a slightly uneven surface, which makes it a sound choice over old lime walls that will never be flat. Damp must be dealt with first. See clay plaster installation.
Can clay plaster be applied to plasterboard?
Yes, with the right preparation. Plasterboard needs its joints reinforced and the right primer, so the first coat dries evenly. Primer evens out the suction of the wall. Because the finish is matt and forgiving, it is a good choice for rooms where flat emulsion has always looked lifeless.
Can I apply clay plaster myself?
Yes, it is the friendliest of our finishes to lay yourself. There is no burnishing to get wrong, and if a patch goes badly you can work back over it. What catches people out is scale and edges, such as holding the mottle across a big wall and cutting a clean line at the ceiling. Or see our installation service.
What colours does clay plaster come in?
Each product lists the colours it comes in, and we tint to any NCS or RAL reference so a second order matches. Earth colours, bone, clay pink, olive and warm stone do the most with the finish. Deep saturated colours work but need more material and a longer look at a sample. See our colours page.
Is clay plaster matt or shiny?
It is matt, chalky and low sheen, with colour moving gently across the wall. Fussing with it burnishes patches and leaves shiny islands, so we leave it alone once laid. If you want a mirror polish, polished plaster is the finish to look at instead.
How do I clean clay plaster, and is it suitable with children and pets?
Yes, it shrugs off a knock better than people expect. Greasy marks, such as fingerprints round a switch, are the awkward ones, and we use Rinfresca cleaner for them. In a hallway with a dog and a pushchair we would seal the lower part of the wall, and the sheen will be slightly different there.
Can clay plaster be repaired if it gets damaged?
Yes, it can be patched, which emulsion cannot. A repair in the same tinted material knits in and fades out over a few weeks. Keep your sample board and a record of the colour so we can match the batch. Send photographs to our team and we will say what the damage needs.
Should I use clay plaster or lime paint?
If your reference is really a chalky, colour washed wall with brush movement in it, lime paint is the right answer and far less work. For the soft mottled depth of roman clay, use a lime plaster. See lime paint or our limewash page.
Can I order a sample of clay plaster?
Yes, a sample board costs £8, and we suggest living with it on the wall for a week before ordering the room. Choose the colour you keep coming back to and judge it in daylight and in lamplight. Order the sample board to start.
Can my own decorator buy clay plaster from you?
Yes, we sell the materials with tracked delivery across the UK for people using their own decorator. Trade accounts give ten percent off every material, applied automatically. See our shop and trade page, or ring 07592 929191 and we will work out quantities from your room sizes.

Providing luxury finishes for the most prestigious addresses in the world

Venetian plaster, limewash, microcement, tadelakt, metallics, sculptural plaster and gold leaf, supplied and installed by our own team, with Venetian plaster taught at our Birmingham studio.

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For The Trade Three ways to earn with us
Trade accountTen percent off every material in the shop, and a specialist on the phone. Partners & affiliatesGet listed where customers find you, or sell our materials and earn on every order. The Rewards RoomEvery order earns. Samples, tools and an apron, on the house.
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