AQUAVET: <BR>A Marriage of Special Effects, Functional Performance and Handling Ease
Developing unusual effects with unique appearance and glamorous colors has never been easier due to the wide variety of special-effect pigments on the market today. Designers can choose from dramatic color shifts to the subtler and increasingly popular metallic colors found on everything from automobiles, appliances and electronic componentry to many general industrial, ink and plastic applications. By far the most utilitarian and popular pigment for special-effect aesthetics has been aluminum. Its popularity has played a major role in color trends throughout the past 60 years, and has been a dominant pigment in the color palette for the last four years. The millennium color, "Silver" not only imparts a feeling of richness, but also technical precision, and its popularity is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
Aluminum pigments are not new, and in fact have been formulated into coatings, ink and plastic applications for many years. Originally designed as a functional pigment, leafing grades were applied to steel structures providing a barrier protection that was second to none. As aluminum pigment technology grew, it soon became apparent that unique effects could be achieved if the pigment was "deleafed". Allowing the flake to reside within the film matrix, rather than at or near the surface, creating a whole new color space for designers to work with. Polychromatic or ‘metallescent' colors provided exciting new ways to market anything that could be coated. Designers from all parts of the color world quickly acknowledged the aesthetic appeal and began using non-leafing aluminum pigments.