It is a basic salt which is analogous to n-Lead Stearate . It is used as a versatile combined lubricant and heat stabiliser for PVC. It offers significantly better heat stability than n-Lead Stearate due to to the nearly double Lead content. It has a safe PbO of 36.5% out of reactive PbO of 55% on its molecule. Also it's lower organic content, less than 50%, gives it little lower lubricity and hence better compatibility, permiting using higher level than n-Lead Stearate without any exudation problems. It has wide applications as a powerful supplementary stabiliser with primary Lead stabiliser of low basicity. When used in conjunction with other Stabilisers, it provides lubrication particularly on the surface of machines working at high temperatures and at high speeds.

Dibasic Lead Stearate when used alone in PVC, due to having low refractive index, has a low pigmentation and produces a translucent product. Dibasic Lead Stearate is used as a lubricating stabiliser in PVC to reduce friction and offers heat stability and is suitable for both translucent and coloured compounds where long period of heat stability is required. It may be used in combination with other metallic stearates of low basicity to provide long period of heat stability with greater efficiency. It has wide application as a lubricant for the plasticised PVC compounds, particularly cable covering. For rigid PVC applications it is necessary to use a well balanced lubricant system.