What goes into the tin
Nine ingredients.
That’s the whole list.
Most paint brands will send you a safety data sheet and call it transparency. Here is the actual recipe for a tin of Victory Colours emulsion — all nine lines of it — and what every single one of them is doing to the wall you’re looking at.
- 01 Water
- 02 Cellulose thickener
- 03 Dispersant & wetting agent
- 04 Defoamer
- 05 Natural talc
- 06 Titanium dioxide
- 07 Acrylic resin binder
- 08 Stir-in pigment
- 09 Preservative
Why we publish this
“Eco” isn’t worth saying
Every paint brand in the country will tell you its paint is eco-friendly, vegan and low in VOCs. Most of them are telling the truth. That is exactly why it is not worth saying on its own — a claim everybody makes tells you nothing about who to buy from.
A list is worth saying
What separates paint brands is whether they will show you the recipe. The ones that do almost always bury it in a PDF data sheet written for a warehouse manager. Ours is on this page, in English, with the job each ingredient is doing written next to it.
What we won’t tell you
The proportions. How much of each of these goes into a batch is the formulation, and the formulation is the business. So you will find every ingredient on this page and no percentages — we would rather say that plainly than publish a chart that implies more precision than we are actually giving you.
Section one
The recipe, in the order it’s made
Scroll, and the tin gets made. Nine ingredients go in one at a time — and each one visibly does the job it is there to do. None of what happens in the glass is invented for the look of it.
01 / 09
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01
Water
The carrier
Everything else on this list is suspended in this. It is what makes the paint water-based: it thins with water, it washes out of a brush under the tap, and it never needs a solvent to stay liquid. That one decision is where the ultra-low odour comes from — long before any of the clever ingredients arrive.
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02
Thickener & rheology modifier — cellulose, organic
The reason it doesn’t run
Watch the swirl slow down and tighten. That is viscosity arriving. Cellulose gives the paint its body, so it holds on a roller instead of flinging off it, lays off flat instead of leaving ridges, and stays where you put it rather than running down the wall while you cut in the next stretch.
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03
Dispersant & wetting agent — VOC-free
The reason the colour is even
Pigment wants to clump. The dispersant keeps every particle apart and evenly spread, which is why a wall dries one colour rather than a blotchy approximation of one. Dispersants are one of the places VOCs traditionally hide in a “low-VOC” paint. Ours is VOC-free.
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04
Defoamer — silicone-free
The reason there are no pinholes
Stirring and rolling whip air into paint, and trapped bubbles dry as tiny craters in the finish. The defoamer brings them up to the surface and bursts them before they can reach your wall — watch them go. Silicone-free, so there is nothing in the film that a second coat would struggle to sit on.
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05
Filler — natural talc
The body
A filler gives paint something to actually be. It is the solid that fills and levels the surface underneath, and it is a large part of where a matt finish gets its flat, soft depth rather than looking like a thin stain. Ours is natural talc.
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06
Opacifying agent — titanium dioxide
This is opacity. This is coats.
Watch the wall behind the glass disappear. Titanium dioxide is the whitest and most opaque pigment there is, and how much of it a paint carries is the single biggest reason one tin covers in two coats and a cheaper one still looks patchy after four. It is the most expensive thing on this list and the one you would notice first if we used less of it.
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07
Binder — acrylic resin
The reason you can wipe it
The binder is the film. When the water has gone, the binder is literally what is left on your wall — holding the pigment in place and gripping the plaster. Ours is an acrylic resin, and it is why our Matt Emulsion is rated Class 1 for rub resistance under BS EN 13300, the top of five classes. The surface in the glass has just gone from chalk to a 2–5% sheen.
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08
Stir-in pigments — solvent-free & VOC-free
The colour
This is the only ingredient that changes between one tin and the next. Everything above is the same whether you ordered Secret Cinema or Duck Egg Blue. Our pigments are stirred in rather than dissolved in solvent, so the colour arrives with no VOCs attached to it — which is why we can offer all 163 without an asterisk next to the dark ones.
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09
Preservative — under 15 parts per million
The reason it survives the journey
A water-based paint is, unavoidably, a tin of water. Without a preservative it would spoil in the tin long before it reached you. Ours is an isothiazolinone mixture held under 15 parts per million. That is a real number, and the next section but three is about how small it is.
Section two
Paint facts
The same nine, set out the way a label should be. Select any row to jump back to that ingredient in the tin.
Paint Facts
Interior Matt Emulsion · water-based · 9 ingredients
- Water Carrier. Everything else is suspended in it. Bulk
- Binder — acrylic resin The film left on the wall. Adhesion, washability, sheen. Major
- Opacifying agent — titanium dioxide Opacity. The reason two coats is two and not four. Major
- Filler — natural talc Body. Fills and levels the surface; gives matt its depth. Major
- Stir-in pigments Colour. Solvent-free and VOC-free. The only line that varies. Minor
- Thickener & rheology modifier — cellulose, organic Viscosity. Holds on the roller, doesn’t run. Minor
- Dispersant & wetting agent — VOC-free Keeps pigment apart so colour dries even, not blotchy. Trace
- Defoamer — silicone-free Bursts trapped air before it dries as pinholes. Trace
- Preservative — isothiazolinone mixture Stops the tin spoiling before it reaches you. <15 ppm
About that last column. Eight of these nine are shown as a tier, not a percentage, and the tiers are indicative. The exact ratios are the formulation and we don’t publish them — so rather than invent a number to fill a chart, the bar tells you the order of magnitude and stops.
The one row with a real figure on it is the preservative, because that one genuinely is published: under 15 parts per million. It is the strictest number we hold ourselves to and the smallest thing in the tin.
Shop 163 coloursSection three
What that actually gets you
An ingredients list is only interesting if it explains something. Hover an ingredient to see what it is responsible for — or an outcome to see what delivers it.
- Water
- Cellulose thickener
- Dispersant
- Defoamer
- Natural talc
- Titanium dioxide
- Acrylic binder
- Stir-in pigment
- Preservative
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It covers in one or two coats
Titanium dioxide and talc between them do the hiding. Matt Emulsion goes about 14 m² per litre; one to two coats depending on what is underneath, and we recommend two for a professional finish.
Paint calculator -
It stays where you put it
The cellulose thickener gives it body and the binder holds the film together, so it loads onto a roller without flinging, lays off flat, and doesn’t run down the wall behind you.
Brushes & rollers -
The colour dries even
The dispersant keeps pigment particles apart and the defoamer takes the air out. Between them that is the difference between a flat wall of one colour and a patchy one with pinholes in it.
Samples · £1.50 -
You can wipe it clean
The acrylic binder is why our Matt Emulsion carries Class 1 rub resistance under BS EN 13300 — the top of five classes, and on the standard matt, not just the kitchen and bathroom one.
Finishes guide -
It barely smells
Water instead of solvent, a VOC-free dispersant and solvent-free pigments. Two of our finishes are certified Indoor Air Comfort Gold, the strictest emissions tier Eurofins publish.
The numbers -
It arrives usable
The preservative is the one ingredient that does nothing for the finish at all. Its entire job is making sure a tin of water-based paint is still paint when it reaches your hallway.
See 15 ppm
Section four
The one you’ll actually notice
Nobody buys paint on its dispersant. They buy it on whether the old colour is still showing through. That is titanium dioxide doing its job, and it is the one place a paint company can quietly save money and hope you don’t notice until the second tin.
Drag the handle. Underneath is Blue Dragoon, one of the darkest colours we make; on top is Victory White. A pale colour over a dark one is the hardest thing you can ask a paint to do, which is why it is the honest test.
- Coverage
- ~14 m² per litre
- Coats
- 1–2 · two recommended
- Sheen
- 2–5% · flat matt
- Rub resistance
- Class 1, BS EN 13300
One honest exception. Deep reds and bright yellows are naturally more translucent and may want an extra coat. We could fix that by cutting them with white, but yellows turn lemony and reds turn pink when you do, so we don’t.
Section five
Acrylic — and why that isn’t a dodge
The binder is the most consequential choice on the whole list, so it deserves a straight answer rather than a badge.
Acrylic is a synthetic. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and any brand telling you their acrylic is a natural material is having you on. What we do claim is narrower and checkable: our binder is not a microplastic. It is supplied as a dispersion that coalesces into one continuous film as the water leaves, so what ends up on your wall is a single sheet of cured resin — not loose polymer beads sitting in a matrix, waiting to be washed off into the drain.
The alternative would be a natural oil or resin binder. They are lovely and they are genuinely more natural — and they yellow, they take days rather than hours to recoat, and they will not get you Class 1 rub resistance in a hallway with a dog in it. We picked the one that survives family life.
Section six
Fifteen in a million
The preservative is the only ingredient on our list that a sceptical reader is going to stop at, so we would rather put it in the biggest type on the page than hide it in the last row of a table.
There is a preservative in our paint. There is a preservative in every water-based paint sold in this country, because without one a tin of water would spoil on the shelf. The honest question is not whether there is one, it is how much.
Ours is held under 15 parts per million. Scroll, and keep watching the marked dots as the field grows. They are still there at the end. That is the point.
100 dots shown · 15 of them marked
15 ppm — 0.0015% of the tin
Section seven
What’s not in the tin
Six things you will find in a lot of paint and none of ours. Every jar on this shelf is empty, which is the only honest way to draw it.
- Formaldehyde Not added, and not released as the film cures.
- Heavy metals No lead, no cadmium, no chromium pigments.
- Phthalates Nothing plasticised. The acrylic doesn’t need it.
- Microplastics The binder cures to one continuous film, not beads.
- Solvents Water does the carrying. Brushes wash out under the tap.
- Animal products Certified by The Vegan Society. No exceptions, no shellac.
Who checked
A list is only as good as the people willing to audit it. Two organisations outside this business have looked at ours.
The Vegan Society
Registered with the Vegan Trademark — no animal-derived ingredients and no animal testing anywhere in the process.
The vegan range →
Eurofins — Indoor Air Comfort Gold
Our Matt Emulsion and Kitchen & Bathroom Soft Sheen are sealed into a test chamber and measured to EN 16516 for 28 days. Gold is the strictest tier published. Our other five finishes are not certified, and we say so.
The full numbers →
The awkward questions
If a page like this only answers the easy ones it isn’t worth publishing.
Is this genuinely the full list?
Yes. Those nine lines are everything that goes into a tin of our emulsion. What we do not publish is the proportions — how much of each — because that is the formulation and it is the part a competitor would actually want. If you need a complete substance breakdown for a specification or a health reason, ring us on 01258 841310 and we will talk it through.
Talc — isn’t that the thing there was a scare about?
You are thinking of cosmetic talc, and the concern there is about loose powder being breathed in, plus historic contamination of some cosmetic sources. Talc in paint is a different situation: it is a mineral filler, it is wetted into a liquid at the factory and then locked into a cured film on your wall, so at no point is there a powder for you to inhale. It is one of the most common fillers in interior paint for exactly that reason — it is inert, it levels beautifully and it does not react with anything else in the tin.
And titanium dioxide?
Titanium dioxide is the white pigment that makes paint opaque, and it is in effectively every white and pale paint sold anywhere. The health discussion around it concerns inhaling it as a loose dry powder, which is a manufacturing and handling question rather than a wet-paint one. Once it is dispersed in liquid and dried into a film it is not going anywhere. The one practical thing it means for you is the ordinary decorating rule that applies whoever made the paint: do not dry-sand a painted surface without a mask.
Why is there a preservative in an eco paint at all?
Because it is water-based. The same decision that removes the solvents and most of the smell also makes the tin hospitable to microbes, so a water-based paint with no preservative would spoil somewhere between our factory and your hallway. Every water-based paint on sale in the UK contains one. The number that matters is the amount, and ours is held under 15 parts per million — 0.0015% of the tin.
Acrylic is a plastic. How is that eco?
Acrylic is a synthetic polymer and we are not going to dress that up. The specific claim we make is that it is not a microplastic: it is supplied as a dispersion that coalesces into one continuous film as the water evaporates, so the cured paint is a single sheet of resin rather than discrete beads that can shed. The natural alternatives — plant oils and natural resins — are genuinely more natural, and they also yellow over time, take far longer to recoat, and will not reach Class 1 rub resistance. We chose durability, and we would rather explain the trade-off than hide it.
Is it really vegan, or just not tested on animals?
Both. We are registered with The Vegan Society, which covers ingredients and testing. There are no animal-derived ingredients anywhere in the formulation — no casein, no shellac, no beeswax, and none of the animal-derived additives that turn up in some traditional and some specialist paints.
Can I paint a nursery or a bedroom with this?
Our paints are water-based, ultra low odour, and two of our finishes hold Indoor Air Comfort Gold, the strictest emissions tier Eurofins publish. We would rather give you that evidence and let you decide than make a health claim, because Gold is an emissions standard and not a medical clearance. Whatever paint you use, ventilate the room while you work and afterwards, and let it dry properly before the room goes back into use.
Can I have a safety data sheet?
Yes, and you are entitled to one. Ring 01258 841310 or email us and say which product and which size, and we will send the current sheet. This page is meant to be the readable version, not a replacement for it.
Three steps, and one of them costs £1.50
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01
Get a sample
An A5 painted sheet of the real paint, on your wall, in your light. £1.50.
Order a sample -
02
Or bring us a colour
A cushion, a tile, an old tin. We match the object itself, in 3–5 working days, at no extra cost.
Colour matching -
03
Then order the tin
Mixed to order, all nine ingredients, 163 colours and no asterisks on the dark ones.
Shop the paint
Still not sure? Ring 01258 841310 and ask us something difficult about the formulation. It is a small family business — you will get someone who knows the answer.