What's New at TKB Trading

Ever wonder what neat name to give your most recent blend of brown micas? How about Electric Mud? Or Moondance, or Coppertunity, or Currant or Jolt? If your brain needs a jumpstart on color names and color trends, check out The Color Marketing Group (CMG).

Every year, this trade association gets together and goes through a five-step process to come up with the palettes of the future. Fortune 500's...

I'm always attracted to news stories about people who start up a boutique paint company. Maybe because in my heart of hearts, I'd love to do the same!

This month, there was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle which showcased two Portland, Oregon women who started out as a "Custom Finishes" company (the kind of people who come in and paint your interiors in interesting ways) and ended up...

What are Organic Colorants? . . . How about I start by explaining what they are NOT.

I get lots of queries from well-meaning customers who want to make their products with only organic ingredients. They want to make sure they only purchase natural, organic pigments from TKB Trading! "No," I explain to them "You really don't!"

The confusion comes from the use of the word "organic".

In the natural...

Recently, I had a Mom from Florida call to order our mineral makeup kit for her daughter. The daughter wanted to explain the making of cosmetics in a science exhibit for her school. Brilliant!

In addition to selling them the kit, I immediately directed them to this very excellent, non-commerical website about pigments, Pigments Through The Ages: http://webexhibits.org/pigments/

This site has lots of...

Where I stumbled last time I was websurfing . . .

Trae Bodge, a New Yorker has partnered to create a business called Three Custom Color Makeup. She started as a tiny mail order lipstick and blush biz and started going gang busters after just a year. read her technique for custom-making lipsticks at $50 a pair.

Trae's business site, which www.threecustom.com. She has some very interesting...

There is a fascinating article in the December 2005 Popular Science magazine about the invention of colored soap bubbles. You will no doubt see this unique invention on the market by next summer -- at the latest.

These soap bubbles are vivid colors -- purple, pink, etc., and yet, when they burst the dyes do not stain or color. Instead, they simply disappear. Read the article to understand the...

Interesting blurb in Business 2.0 magazine about nanotechnology as used in color cosmetics (November, 2005, pg. 36).

It says that L'Oreal will release a new line of lipstick, eye shadow and nail polish in 2006. The products will look white in their packages, but when they are applied and interact with light, the makeup will shimmer with vivid colors.

What's happening is that the color in the makeup...

In our weblog, I will be posting things that I find interesting about the industries of color, crafts and color cosmetics.

I also plan to post some of the more interesting questions which I get, along with my answers.

Feel free to add your comments.

Be sure to visit our site at www.wholesalecolors.com (or www.tkbtrading.com).