Titanium White – Winsor & Newton Artist Oils – WARNING: SOLVENT

[Richard P]

Not the winton ones, the professional range..

[Gigalot]

Solvent was usually employed to dissolve paint additives. Driers, aluminum stearate, castor wax and resins are dissolvent in solvents before adding to oil paint. Many oil paint can contain a few percentage of solvent. However, such paints must be completely abandoned by non-toxin people. Drop such paint, guys! Good paint must contain pigment and oil, while non-toxin (person, who never use toxins in his life time) must be free of toxins.

[Richard P]

Ok, I have a reply:

“Hi Richard,

Thank you for contacting us. The W&N Artists Oil Paints do contain trace amount of mineral solvent in the formulation, with the total VOC content of the paint is >0.01%. The safflower oil base used in the Titanium White paint is differs to the other colours to prevent a impact on the colour. This could be what accounts for the difference in smell as the oil can be quite strong to someone who has a sensitive nose. The oil base is listed on the product label.

I hope this information helps. I have also provided a safety data sheet for information.

​
Kind Regards,

Regulatory Affairs

Winsor & Newton Support Team”

And I’ve uploaded the SDS, but I can’t see anything useful in it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SVaOA314ivBF7_it8az3jxZZwXkKF32M/view?usp=sharing

Any thoughts?

[RomanB]

Any thoughts?

Maybe they use oils that were extracted using solvent method.

As far as I understand, today’s Winsor & Newton is just a brand owned by Colart corporation which also owns Lefranc & Bourgeois, Reeves, Beckers Normalfärger and other brands. I won’t be very surprised if Lefranc Titanium White has the same solvent smell, since it is made on the same factory.

[Raffless]

Not the winton ones, the professional range..

Ah okay. I though the same company would adopt the methodology to Winton. Have you tried other brands Richard? I live in the UK and titanium white can be sourced cheaply which can help you paint solvent free.

[Gigalot]

total VOC content of the paint is >0.01%. That can cause serious allergy reactions. Better to avoid these W$N paints and replace then with safe organic paints. Hope Williamsburg are solvent-free stuff… Michael Harding paints are solvent free.

[Richard P]

I don’t follow their logic, as the solvent is only in the Titanium White that I tested, not in any of their other colours ground in safflower oil. So unless they are using a different batch of oil, is it more likely than they are using it for dryers?

Raffless: I live in the UK, but I can get W&N cheaper than other paints.

[Pinguino]

“Total VOC >0.01%”, are you sure that is not a typo? Maybe should be less than instead of greater than?

… That can cause serious allergy reactions. …

Evidence? I am not aware that “mineral solvent” is especially allergenic, compared to plant-based solvents.

[Raffless]

total VOC content of the paint is >0.01%. That can cause serious allergy reactions. Better to avoid these W$N paints and replace then with safe organic paints. Hope Williamsburg are solvent-free stuff… Michael Harding paints are solvent free.

But that percentage could mean 1/100 fatalities if you bend the laws of statistics.

[Gigalot]

Some artists said, that they are deadly sensitive to solvents. If so, then solvent free paint must be free of toxins. If W$N is toxic, then other brands can be non-toxic! BTW, such non-toxic paint will be free of another crap such as driers, castor wax, aluminum stearate and resins.

[Raffless]

But its the Voc’s. The other ‘crap’ they add we can workaround more easily.

[Richard P]

I imagine they did mean <0.01%. But they didn't really explain why it's in there as they seem to describe it being in all their artist oil colours rather than just the white.

I will go back to them but would like to hear what everyone else thinks first..

[Michael Lion]

I’ve previously noticed that W&N Titanium White smells like solvent, and I’ve also noticed that it dries way too fast to just be titanium white with safflower oil, so I’ve assumed that they add a small amount of alkyd (aka Liquin) to it so that it doesn’t take such a long time to dry.

But why only do that to the titanium white and not the other slow drying colors? Their “Naples Yellow Hue Deep,” which is also a titanium-based pigment in safflower oil, takes like 7 days to dry, which is how long titanium white would take to dry without W&N’s special addition.

* * *

See, I previously wrote this here, people should pay more attention to my posts! https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21258818&postcount=4

* * *

Anyway, for this reason I prefer W&N titanium white over all other whites, it has the non-yellowing benefit of safflower oil without the downside of taking 7 days to dry.

[Richard P]

So you did Michael

I’ve not seen a solvent smell in any of the other titanium whites I have.

[Richard P]

I’ve sent this:

“Hello,

Thank you for the reply and for explaining some more about the situation.

However I am still confused. Are you saying that all the colours in the W&N Artist oil paints contain a small amount of mineral solvent? I am only smelling this solvent in the Titanium White, not in any other W&N paints. I also have other W&N colours in Safflower oil: Bismuth Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale and Naples Yellow Deep and none of those smell of solvent.

Are you adding a small amount of alkyd to the white to speed up the drying (the same as you have in your Alkyd Griffin range?

I’m trying to determine whether this is a manufacturing error, or a deliberate choice in the white?

Thanks,
Richard”

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