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As consumer markets increasingly demand realistic haptics, exceptional softness, and enhanced user experience, novel, oil-extendable elastic materials are finding growing application in stress-relief toys, intimate wellness products, and next-generation electronic skin materials. Yet as formulators push for ultimate softness, balancing rebound performance, processing stability, and product safety has become a critical challenge in materials development.

LCY offers a high-performance novel HSBC (Hydrogenated Styrenic Block Copolymer) — an oil-extendable material that downstream processors formulate with oil to achieve target softness. Through innovative macromolecular and star-shaped molecular design, LCY’s HSBC helps customers address oil bleed, improve processing stability, and enhance material stability — delivering ultimate softness alongside high resilience and superior processability for greater market competitiveness.

Three Core Challenges When Working with High-Oil-Content End Products: Softness, Processing, and Supply Stability

As demand grows for realistic haptics and soft materials, many products are shifting toward high-oil-content elastomers. In practice, however, material performance must strike a balance among softness, processing stability, and mechanical strength — a key challenge that many conventional materials have struggled to meet.

In this application case, long-term reliance on a single supply source had limited supply chain options; any market disruption created procurement risk. In addition, end products with high oil loading tended to soften, deform, and exhibit oil bleed during summer processing or long-distance transport, degrading product appearance and user experience.

Furthermore, while conventional materials such as silicone and TPU offer certain performance advantages, they remain constrained in achieving skin-grade softness. Oil bleed leads to greasy surfaces, processing difficulties, and a deteriorated tactile feel, driving customers to seek new material solutions.

LCY's Innovative Molecular Design: Balancing Softness and Stability

To address the oil bleed and performance imbalance inherent in high-oil-content end products, LCY optimized the material at the molecular level. Through novel macromolecular design and a star-shaped molecular design, the material’s capacity to absorb and retain oil was significantly enhanced.

Compared with conventional material design approaches, LCY also reduced impurity levels within the material, improving internal structural stability so that oil remains more uniformly retained within the material system — minimizing migration and surface inconsistency.

Through this molecular design optimization, LCY achieved a successful balance between ultimate softness and the mechanical performance required after high-ratio oil loading. The result is improved rebound performance alongside better downstream processing stability and overall product quality.

LCY Novel HSBC: Enabling Ultimate Softness and High Resilience

LCY's novel HSBC is an oil-extendable hydrogenated styrenic elastomer featuring a star-shaped macromolecular design that combines excellent elasticity with strong mechanical properties. The material maintains stable elastic behavior across a temperature range of approximately −50°C to near 100°C, making it suitable for diverse application environments.

In terms of material performance, the compound can readily achieve near-zero Shore hardness once oil-extended by the processor — approaching 0° — significantly softer than typical silicone products at approximately 25–30° Shore, and closely approximating the tactile feel of human skin. The material also delivers high resilience, giving finished products a springy, supportive, and natural feel.

The material’s high oil-retention capability and excellent mechanical properties also effectively mitigate oil bleed, improve processing stability, and enhance downstream colorability and color fastness — meeting the quality and tactile demands of premium products.

Yield Improvement, Higher Processing Efficiency, and Enhanced Material Stability

Following adoption of LCY’s novel HSBC, customers achieved significant improvements in product yield and processing efficiency, with overall yield estimated to have more than doubled. Oil-loading speed increased by approximately 20%, effectively reducing processing time, while oil-retention performance improved by more than 50% — delivering drier surfaces, greater stability, and higher downstream processing quality.

Application Segments

• Stress-relief toy materials

• Intimate wellness product materials

• Robot Skin

• E-skin

• High-fidelity haptic material applications

Ultimate Softness and Stability Enabled: Building High-Value Material Competitiveness

In a market where material performance, supply reliability, and user experience must all advance simultaneously, competitiveness is no longer a matter of softness alone — it also demands product stability, processing efficiency, and supply chain resilience. LCY’s novel HSBC, through its innovative macromolecular design and technical optimization, helps customers address oil bleed and improve processing efficiency while maintaining ultimate softness and high resilience — delivering a more complete and effective solution for the market.

If you are looking for a high-performance, oil-extendable elastic material that enables ultimate softness, high resilience, and processing stability, we invite you to contact us and co-develop highly competitive products that meet today’s market demands.

For more product information and technical collaboration inquiries, please reach out: https://www.lcycic.com/en/contact-us