A creamed emulsion increases the likelihood of coalescence due to the close proximity of the globules in the cream. Factors that influence the rate of creaming are similar to those involved in the sedimentation rate of suspension particles. Stokes Law is inadequate to predict creaming but can be used to identify these factors.
Creaming of an emulsion also increases the tendency of an emulsion to inversion. This class of process occurs mainly in special cases, when both the continuous and dispersed phases of an emulsion are liquid, as commonly is the state in dairy cream. It is common where the volume of the two fluid components is about the same or the volume of the dispersed phase is larger than that of the continuous phase. The process of emulsion inversion occurs when the dispersed droplets unite, but retain the formerly continuous material as droplets within the mass.
This is an "invert emulsion" or "inverted emulsion", in which the formerly continuous phase has become the dispersed phase and vice versa. Inversion happens in dairy cream when the butterfat concentration is too high and the resulting invert emulsion looks much like butter.
Commonly invert emulsions look much like a paste or thick cream and typical examples are mayonnaise, margarine (especially "low-fat" grades of margarine), pharmaceutical ointments, and cosmetic "creams".
Emulsion inversion differs from emulsion breaking in that a breaking emulsion tends to separate the two phases into un-emulsified continuous phases. Inversion of an emulsion may or may not be difficult to invert, but generally more difficult than creaming.