Natural water-soluble polymers such as starch, casein and carboxy methyl cellulose(CMC) have been limited in their uses. However, the proper water retention of coating colors can not be obtained without addition of these polymers. Furthermore, the coating runnability and the physical properties of coated paper were not also satisfied. Therefore, the objective of this study was to synthesize the water retention and flow modifiers which can improve the water retention and flow properties of coating colors. We have measured physical properties of flow modifiers and coating colors which included flow modifiers. The viscosity of flow modifiers was very low at acid pH, and rapidly increased at about pH 7, and gradually reached to equilibrium at alkali pH. Such an increase comes from the molecular weight of flow modifiers and the amount of acrylic and methacrylic acids. The viscosity of coating color containing the flow modifiers was lower than that containing CMC. However, both of them had little difference in water retention. The water-phase viscosity of synthetic modifier containing coating color was either higher or similar compared to that of CMC containing coating color. The high shear viscosity of coating colors was low. Therefore, it can be concluded that the synthetic flow modifiers are very useful for improvement of flow properties and water retentions.