Soft Pastel Safety - Titanium Dioxide (PW6)

Welcome! The trouble with reading and doing research is that you will eventually find out that it is all dangerous! Part of the reason is partial knowledge &#; which is often worse than no knowledge, internet knowledge &#; which is often just plain wrong,:eek: and part of the problem is the health labeling as it exists today. Here is information about Titanium Dioxide from the Dick Blick Art supply website:

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Titanium dioxide is highly stable and is regarded as completely non-toxic. Animal studies give no indiciation that it is absorbed biologically, even after long periods of exposure. The primary safety concern is with inhalation of fine pigment dust particles. Titanium White, if inhaled in large amounts over the course of several years, may cause a benign pneumoconiosis that is visible on x-rays. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) considers fine titanium dioxide particles, if inhaled, to be a human carcinogen. The primary concern for artists is to avoid exposure to fine particulate dust from raw pigments.

So, based on this info, if you aren&#;t making pastels from raw pigment, you should have no concerns at all &#; at least as far as it being carcinogenic.

Since we are dealing with small dust particles, it is however a good idea to avoid the dust as much as possible by wearing a dust mask while painting with pastels, and minimizing dust in the air by doing a lot of vacuuming, not blowing on your painting and using some sort of dust catch tray on your easel. Like any dust particles, it can cause respiratory difficulties if inhaled.

One problem with the CA 65 labeling is that if a product has even one particle of hazardous substance, it has to get the CA 65 label &#; even if, let&#;s say, it has 1 part per million of that hazardous substance and it would take 1,000 parts per million to actually harm anyone. So you can have a CA 65 label on a product that also has a non-toxic classification. At least that is how I understand it, but I may be wrong, too.

So, getting back to Titanium White, since it is an ingredient in many (if not a majority) of pastels, some companies give each of those pastels a CA 65 label &#; others do not bother. However, based on the information given in the info above, none of them is actually hazardous in pastel form &#; only in the raw pigment form and possibly only in large quantities.

As far as sunsets go, whether in pastels or other media, the best advice I ever got was don&#;t mix yellow and blue. Yes, many sunsets have blue turning to yellow, but when I paint those types of sunsets, I make sure I separate any blue and yellow &#; often with oranges and reds. Or I just turn the yellows into reds and magentas!

Don

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Ti-Pure&#; TS- is designed to allow paints to be formulated with optimal titanium dioxide (TiO&#;) efficiency, providing superior hiding power. State-of-the-art process control technologies and an engineered inorganic surface treatment ensure Ti-Pure&#; TS- particles are kept at just the right spacing&#;which is critical in crowded paint systems.

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This grade is part of our Ti-Pure&#; Sustainability (TS) Product Series. Ti-Pure&#; TS- is designed to advance sustainability, minimize climate impact, and maximize resource efficiency by enabling a significant reduction in resource consumption and waste in the painting process versus universal TiO&#; grades. Calculate your potential savings here.

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Ti-Pure&#; TS- is frequently found in interior and exterior architectural paints. It's also used in high-hiding flat paints formulated above Critical Pigment Volume Concentration (CPVC). For more information, please see the Ti-Pure&#; TS- product sheet. 

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Packaging and Handling

The packed density of TiO&#; grades directly affects package stacking stability. For recommendations on packaging and handling, please see the safe handling guidelines for FIBCs.