Lackers are frequently required to be colored, either of yellow or red tints. For yellow tints, turmeric, cape aloes, saffron, or gamboge are employed; and for red tints, annotto and dragon's-blood are used - the proportions being varied according to the color required. Thus, for a pale yellow, about one ounce of gamboge and two ounces of cape aloes are powdered and mixed with one pound of shell-lac. For a full yellow, half a pound of turmeric and two ounces of gamboge, and for a red lacker, half a pound of dragon's-blood and one pound of annotto. The color is also modified by that of the lac employed, the best pale or orange shell-lac being used for light-colored lackers, and dark-colored shell-lac or seed-lac is used for the darker tints. For pale lackers, Sandarac is sometimes used with the shell-lac. Thus a pale gold-colored lacker is made with eight ounces of shell-lac, two ounces of Sandarac, eight ounces of turmeric, two ounces of annotto, and a quarter of an ounce of dragon's-blood to one gallon of spirit of wine.

The most convenient method, however, of coloring lackers, is to make a saturated solution in spirit of wine of each of the color-ing matters, and to add the solutions in different proportion to the pale lacker according to the tint required; but the whole of the coloring matters are not generally used by the same makers, and solutions of turmeric, gamboge, and dragon's-blood afford sufficient choice for ordinary purposes. The turmeric gives a greenish yellow tint, and, with the addition of a little gamboge, is the coloring matter employed in making the so-called green lacker used for bronzed works.

Another mode of making lacker: Four ounces of shell-lac and a quarter of an ounce of gamboge are dissolved by agitation, without heat, in twenty-five ounces of pure pyro-acetic ether. The solution is allowed to stand until the gummy matters not taken up by the sprit subside; the clear liquor is then decanted, and when required for use is mixed with eight times its quantity of spirit of wine. In this case, the pyro-acetic ether is employed for dissolving the shell-lac, in order to prevent any hut the purely resinous portions being taken up, which is almost certain to occur with ordinary spirit of wine, owing to the presence of water; but if the lacker were made entirely with pyro-acetic ether, the latter would evaporate too rapidly to allow time for it to be equally applied.