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Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), often described as plants’ building blocks, are biosourced and biodegradable rod-like nanomaterials whose production rate has been scaled up from a few kilograms to> 1 ton/day within the last decade. They carry high expectations that arise from their properties in water: a solvent in which CNCs are readily dispersible and form stable isotropic colloidal suspensions at dilute levels, then liquid crystals and gels as higher concentrations. These aqueous suspensions are a platform towards a broad range of applications: CNCs may hence act as fillers in nanocomposites, as templating agents for self-assembled materials, as rheological modifiers, or as Pickering emulsifiers. Their applicability has however been hindered by the difficulty encountered when dispersing these predominantly polar particles in non-polar solvents and matrices. This illustrates the need for protocols that improve …