A world of many colors

Many things have changed since the coronavirus pandem­ic became a key factor in our lives. The cosmetics market is no exception. Evonik is re­acting to the situation with its “Take care now” concept. It offers customers comprehensive cleaning and body care solutions adapted to the present Covid-19 situation, in­cluding solutions in the area of decorative cosmetics.

The need to wear a mask is highly stressful for the skin, requiring it to cope with friction and accumulated mois­ture. That’s why daily makeup needs to have certain properties. It should be antimicrobial and sweat-resistant, long-lasting and as non-smearing as possible. One of the makeup product ingredients offered by Evonik is TEGO® Feel C 10, which consists of natural cellulose. It absorbs sebum and oil and creates a matte finish—an effect that also helps people look their best when they’re making video calls from home. However, today the overall focus is on eye makeup. One of the products Evonik offers in this area is SPHINGONY®. It lengthens and thickens eyebrows and eyelashes, enhancing the expressiveness of the user’s eyes—with or without a mask, on a display or in real life.

Hair dye is a popular product. Most hair dyes contain hydrogen peroxide in order to bleach the brownish-black melanin pigments. Evonik offers ultrapure and specially stabilized H202 products for this bleaching process under the brand name PERSYNT®. This product was specially developed for the cosmetics and body care industry and is available to customers in various quality categories.

Nail polish is an all-rounder that upgrades every look, adapts to every trend, and simply puts users in a good mood. In short, it adds the final touch to every styling. Nail polish comes in a wide spectrum of colors and finishes ranging from shiny to matte, or with tiny parti­cles for special effects. To prolong the pleasure, every small bottle contains silica as a stabilizer. The silica acts as a thickener and ensures the even distribution of the color pigments in the nail polish. For this purpose Evonik offers its customers AEROSIL® 200. Customers who want not just color but also special effects for their nails can also count on Evonik’s silica portfolio. For example, the innovative silica SPHERILEX® 10 PC enables a matte finish, and ACEMATT® TS 100 creates a crackle effect, also known as a used look.

A sense of lightness on the skin, more moisture, good coverage: Evonik is helping to ensure that decorative cosmetics feel good and look good. The products that create these effects include emulsifiers, which stabilize the makeup formu­lations. In addition to synthetic variants, Evonik also offers natural emulsifiers such as ISOLAN® GPS. This product can be used as a substitute for emulsifiers containing silicones. It tolerates a high pigment content and ensures that the pigment is evenly distributed throughout the product and thus also on the user’s skin.

Evonik’s product pal­ette also includes ingredients called emollients that make the skin especially supple. For example, the natural product TEGO® SOFT CR MB is an ideal ingredient of lipsticks. Because it melts at body temperature, it is easy to apply and has a velvety or silky feel. As a result, the wearer’s lips look well cared-for and evenly colored.

A clean-cut typeface, high-resolution images, and brilliant colors—that’s the kind of printing end us­ers want. In order to guarantee such quality, highly complex processes take place inside a printer. For example, the toner has to be optimally conditioned and electrically charged—and this is where silica comes in. As a component of toner products, silica has a crucial effect on the powder’s flow behavior and triboelectric chargeability—and thus ultimate­ly on the quality of the printing. To achieve the greatest possible precision here, the composition of the toner is customized for the application ar­eas in question. So it’s a good thing that Evonik’s product portfolio in this segment is so extensive, and that the company offers exactly the right silica for each formulation. A good inkjet printer and high-quality paper are needed in order to produce high-quality photographs. The surface of the pa­per is treated with AEROSIL®, which absorbs the water so that only the color pigments remain on the surface. To make sure that the AEROSIL® can be optimally applied to the paper, it is dispersed in water—a process in which special silanes are used as auxiliary materials. Evonik offers special prod­ucts for this purpose under the brand name DY­NASYLAN®. They modify the surface of AEROSIL® to ensure outstanding printing results.

Rustic wooden furniture radiates durability. To keep their surfaces in good shape as long as possible, tables and chairs need a wood coating. Evonik products provide wood coatings with specific character­istics. TEGO® brand glide additives give wood coat­ings an outstanding feel and improve their flow properties. Evonik prod­ucts also add to the beauty of wood: NANOCRYL® protects it from scratches, and the silica ACEMATT® creates a matte finish.

Kitchens are subject to hard everyday use, and the wear and tear eventually becomes visible over the long term. For example, greasy fingers initially leave stubborn spots on the handles of fittings and faucets, and coatings wear off over time. The cross-linkers VESTANAT® EP-M and EP-E help to avoid these unwanted signs of wear and tear. They make coatings more resistant to scratches, chemicals, and fading due to light. Parquet floors also benefit from high-quality coatings containing VESTANAT® EP-M and EP-E, which prevent irritating tracks on the floor as well as scratches and discoloration.

When you’re painting a house or interior walls, the main success factors are careful application and, above all, the quality of the paint—and that requires high-quality ingredients. When colored paint is formulated, each “ingredient” has its own special function. Solvents keep the paint fluid, pigments give it the desired color, and binders ensure that the paint adheres firmly to the wall. In addition, many different additives are used to fulfill a variety of functions. For example, TEGO® brand anti­foam agents prevent the paint from foaming while it’s being applied, and dispersing additives from Evonik en­sure that the color is evenly distributed. After the paint has dried, it has to stand up to new challenges. For in­stance, conspicuous shiny spots can appear if a suitcase bumps against a wall. SPHERILEX® silica particles pre­vent this undesired effect. These particles, which won the Innovation Award two years ago, are completely round and thus prevent the paint from being rubbed off.

The frames of windows and doors on the exterior of buildings are exposed to changing weather conditions. The paint coating these frames is especial­ly vulnerable, and it gradually fades after long exposure to sunlight. Poly­urethane powder coatings based on VESTAGON® crosslinkers provide opti­mal protection for metal frames. They are resistant to UV light and prevent abrasion caused by the use of aggres­sive cleaning agents.

What matters about a car is not just its interior features such as com­fort and fuel consumption but also exterior aspects such as a chic col­or and optimal gloss. Here, products from Evonik already play a role at an early stage. For example, during the painting process AEROSIL® ensures that car coatings don’t drip before they dry; crosslinking agents from the TEGO® product line give the coatings additional protection from scratches. Evonik provides additives not only for the chassis but also for the cockpit. Components such as the instrument panel, the steering wheel, the gearshift, and leather seats are embel­lished by the matting agent ACEMATT®. In the area of car interiors, the company is currently working on an innovation that will be espe­cially relevant to the carsharing industry: antimicrobial coatings that reduce the risk of infection in shared vehicles.

Some call it art, for others it’s vandalism: No matter what you might think about graffiti, it poses huge challenges to the producers of paints and coatings. For ex­ample, graffiti is often sprayed on railroad wagons. When the graffiti is removed, the harsh cleaning chemicals attack the wagon’s original coating underneath. In the worst cases, the wagon must be completely repainted, and that results in additional costs. The crosslinkers in the VESTANAT® EP-MF product line prevent exactly that by forming a long-lasting barrier against cleaning chemicals. That makes it possible to remove spray paint effectively and precisely without causing any lasting damage.

On supermarket shelves, count­less tin cans bearing colorful printing wait for potential buy­ers. Because their appearance is an important selling point, these cans always need to be in perfect condition. In order to prevent flaws such as dents and scratch­es, several layers of coatings are applied to the cans’ outer sur­faces. In the case of high-quality tin cans, these layers contain the binder DYNAPOL®, which offers optimal protection as well as high elasticity. Incidentally, these polyester resins also play an especially important role inside the tin can. Many canned foods contain substances such as vinegar or lactic acid, which can attack the tin can’s interior coat­ing. In the worst case, this causes metal to contaminate the food. DYNAPOL® forms a protective separating layer and prevents rust, for example, from entering the food—thus guaranteeing the highest level of food safety.

The outer shell of a ship has to withstand numerous stresses—and Evonik provides support. The hardening agents AN­CAMIDE® and ANCAMINE® help to prevent long-term wear and tear of the paint and coating layers due to strong waves and chemical cleaning. The great advantage of these products is their high level of resistance to corrosion and damage due to chemicals. Another risk factor for shipping is posed by small organisms such as barna­cles that cling to a ship’s hull, roughen the coating, and thus increase the drag of the ship’s otherwise smooth hull. Anti-fouling coatings prevent this from happening. Evonik provides important ingredients for these paints, such as the silicone hybrid resin SILIKOPON® EF, which effectively protects ships from the growth of microor­ganisms. Another such product is AERO­SIL® VP 4200, which significantly reduces the proportion of environmentally harmful copper oxide in anti-fouling paints.