Has anyone used ‘Natrosol’ as a thickener for acrylic medium. I tried it – it does thicken – but I thought it felt a bit ‘Gummy’. It is used to make ‘party slime’ for kids. I have been trying to make a clear gel using Silicon Dioxide and also Fumed Silica. But I am having problems getting them to thicken distilled water. Has anyone succeeded in doing this. I can get each to thicken acrylic paint without any problems other than they make the paint a bit ‘grainy’.

Use hair gel, it is basically water and a few substances to hold the water in gel form. You need to mix it well, but it works.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I thought about hair gel but am concerned about additional chemicals. I have just had a conversation with friend of mine who has extensive knowledge about industrial chemistry. He said I will not be able to do it at home because of the equipment needed to successfully combine the fumed silica with the water. He mentioned ‘shear something or other’. Oh well another idea bites the dust.

Acrylic paint is far far more resilient than human hair… acrylic paint is not something fragile. People worry too much about minor contaminants. If it was so easy to damage then you would not be able to mix so many varieties of pigment.

You can mix ground DIRT with acrylics and the paint film will still be stronger and more resilient than the most PURE and pristine oil painting.

On a specific note, hair gel is silica, water Propylene glicol and smell nice additives.

I have searched for hair gel in acrylic painting. There seems to be a problem of ‘shrinkage’ and ‘gummy’ layer associated with it. The lists of ingredients suggests they is a lot more than a simple gel.

Feel free to be paranoid…. most people spend money on professional acrylic fluidifiers.. when it is simply the same acrylic base as floor finish. Or they pay for slow driers when they can buy propylene glicol for a fraction of the price…. People have this myth that paints are so high tech and specialized stuff. IF it were the case, you would not be able to afford it since it is a small scale industry. All these paints are products are re purposing of acrylics of other industry fields. I prefer to save that money to buy more paints or paints with more pigment load.

There are lot of artists that used hair gel and intimate lubs for that purpose before specialized re-purposing products got readily available in market. I do it for 11 years…. never had any reason to regret(just avoid products with strong pigmentation since it may change colors).

All that said, there are obviously limits on how much of ANYTHING you can mix with before you start to screw things up.

This is an old thread and I will close it.

If anyone has new information, or a question, please open a new thread …. members in this thread may not all be visiting any longer.