Water-based Slurry FAQ

The continuous phase of your finished emulsion, and nothing else. Put a water-based slurry into an anhydrous base and it will not incorporate; put an oil-based one into a gel and the same thing happens.

Beyond that: water-based slurries suit cushion foundation, liquid foundation, gel liner, nail polish and any aqueous system, and they give a lighter, less greasy feel. Oil-based slurries suit lipstick, lip gloss and anhydrous systems, and they give better wear and water resistance.

If you make both, you need both, and the pigment content differs — water-based runs lower, at 20–65%, because a water carrier with a high pigment load becomes unstable.

Because water has a lower viscosity at the same solids and cannot hold a dense pigment load in suspension without settling or gelling.

The numbers show it: TiO2 in water reaches 60–65% (848W, 851W) because it is dense and disperses well, while the transparent iron oxides sit at 30% (610R, 630Y) and organic lakes at 20–30% because they are light and highly absorbing. The same pigment that runs at 73% in oil runs at 60% in water.

That is a physics limit, not a formulation choice. If you need a higher delivered colour, you use more slurry rather than a more concentrated one.

Particle size. Transparent grades are far finer, so they absorb colour but scatter much less light — they tint without hiding.

Regular iron oxide at a few hundred nanometres gives opacity and coverage: it is what you use when you want to hide the skin. Transparent iron oxide (our 610R and 630Y) is small enough that it no longer scatters visible light efficiently, so it behaves almost like a dye — warm, transparent, and useful for adjusting undertone without changing coverage.

That makes transparent grades the tool for shade correction in a translucent formula, and regular grades the tool for coverage.

Accept soft settling, prevent hard caking, and mix before use.

A water-based dispersion with a high pigment load will settle; what you control is whether it settles into a soft sediment or a hard cake. Storage temperature between 15 and 30 °C, no freeze-thaw, and no long exposure to direct light covers most of it. If the sediment is soft, rolling the drum restores it.

For a formulation where settling in the finished product is a problem, a rheology modifier in your own base does more than any change to the slurry.

It is an aqueous graphene dispersion positioned as a black colourant alternative, not as an additive for conductivity or strength.

The datasheet lists its use as a replacement for bamboo charcoal, carbon black, black iron oxide and water-based black dyes in appearance applications, and as an addition to light-protection products. The appeal is the story as much as the optics — a carbon-based black with a different consumer narrative from carbon black.

If you are evaluating it, test it as a colourant first: check the black point, the dispersion stability in your base, and the regulatory position in your market, because graphene is a newer material and its permitted status is not uniform.

The slurry is preserved as supplied, but the preservation margin in your finished product is yours to establish.

A water-based dispersion is an aqueous system with a carbon source in it, so microbial growth is a real risk if the container is opened and left. Keep containers closed, use clean utensils, and do not return unused material to the drum.

In the finished formula, run a challenge test as you would for any aqueous product. The slurry's own preservative is sized for the slurry, not for a dilution of it in your base.

They are the same dispersion technology tuned for two applications with unusual demands.

The high-waterproof eyeliner series is built for films that stay on a wet lash line without smearing, so the dispersion is matched to the film former and the water resistance requirement. The nail polish series is matched to the solvent and resin system of a nail lacquer, where a standard water-based dispersion would not be compatible.

Both are listed separately because the compatibility matters more than the colour — using the general-purpose grade in either application usually fails at the film stage, not at the colour stage.

MOQ is 5 kg for a stock grade and 25 kg for production. Lead time 7–15 working days, samples 1 kg.

Shelf life is typically 12 months for water-based products, shorter than the oil-based range because the carrier is aqueous. Store between 15 and 30 °C, protect from freezing, and use within the stated period.

If your production cycle is long, order against your consumption rate rather than stocking up — a water-based slurry sitting for two years is a preservation question you do not want to have.