Darmstadt - Pearl luster, silky shimmer, brilliant glitter, colorful iridescence or radiant sparkles – effect pigments from Merck open up new dimensions of design. Whether refining packaging, lending a brand an attractive appearance, giving a wallpaper an exclusive look or communicating particular product features through the packaging – effect designs with Iriodin, Biflair, Colorstream or Miraval offer in all aspects solutions that promise success.

Innovative effects enliven the printing industry
It's hard to imagine the printing industry without Iriodin as a design element. The effects are achieved through different types of printing processes and can be applied to all kinds of materials. Iriodin is being increasingly discovered by the packaging industry. Iriodin pigments can be divided into silver-white, interference, and gold and metal luster pigments.

Silver-white – with depth
The silver-white pigments lend a print an unmistakable pearl luster and unusual depth. The semi-transparency of the pigments also makes it possible to decisively incorporate the base color into the color concept.

Interference – with an activating effect
Interference pigments allow shimmering and iridescent color effects to be produced in print. The pigments have a brilliant glow in gold-yellow, red, violet, blue or green. Depending on the viewing angle, the perception of the color changes, thus getting the viewer actively involved.

Gold and metal luster – fully in trend
Iriodin gold luster and metal luster pigments range from gold and copper to red and bronze tones. The unique impact of Iriodin metal luster effects – compared to conventional, strongly opaque metal pigments – is a result of the selected base color.

Biflair – for especially silky effects
Special effects can be achieved by using Biflair effect pigments, which are based on bismuth oxychloride. Biflair is distinguished by its intensive, highly opaque and very silky white luster, as well as its easy applicability in printing.

Colorstream – a concert of multicolors
Colorstream are multicolor effect pigments which show an angle-dependent shimmer of the color. Through a multiple color change – by varying the angle of observation – the pigments give a new definition to the term effect pigments. While interference pigments only change from one color to its complementary color, Colorstream distinguishes itself by merging many color nuances. With the Colorstream Twinkle series, introduced in Spring 2010, the typical flowing color travel effects are complemented by a brilliant sparkle.

Miraval shows transparency in color
With the Miraval effect pigment family, Merck has developed innovative products on the basis of synthetic borosilicate flakes. Through their brilliant colorful glitter and bold luster, they lend that certain something to printed objects, such as packaging and textiles. Special visual features of the Miraval product line are their outstanding sparkle, high brilliance and transparency as well as their unique rainbow effect.

Pyrisma – new generation of interference pigments
The latest product line Pyrisma is a new generation of interference pigments that distinguish themselves by their exquisite color saturation. They have been developed in accordance with the "Merck Color Space Concept", which is based on complex colorimetric calculations and allows the covering of a maximum color space with a minimum number of eight pigments.  With Pyrisma, Merck interference pigments are complemented with the colors magenta, indigo and turquoise in addition to green, blue, yellow, red and violet. 

With its variety of effect pigments, Merck offers the printing industry an innovative design element whose potential hasn't yet been tapped. Their possible uses range from business stationery, packaging, wallpaper and decorative foils for furniture to textiles. Effect pigments from Merck are suitable for all conventional printing techniques such as offset coating with chamber blade system, offset-, gravure-, flexo- and screen printing. Numerous well-known manufacturers offer printing inks with effect pigments from Merck. Thanks to the numerous application possibilities with Merck effect pigments, not only printers and designers, but also printing press and packaging manufacturers benefit from the unique design tool effect pigments.