Brands that are vegan

It can be quite tricky to know if the paint you are wanting to use is vegan or not. There are many ways animal derivatives can sneak into your paint, and you have a lot you have to watch out for.

Animal Derivative Ingredients to Watch Out For:

  • Honey 🐝 – Several brands put honey in their binder base to make their paint more easy to rewet.
  • Ox Gall – Several brands put ox gall into their binder base to make the paint disperse more when put down on paper. It’s what makes a paint woosh across a puddle of water on your paper.
  • PBk9 – Ivory black pigment. Although not made from ivory any more, PBk9 is made with burnt animal bone still.

Below are list of brands that are vegan, and those that are not:

Vegan Brands

  • Daniel Smith (except for Payne’s Grey, Joseph Z’s Neutral Grey, Sepia, & Ivory)
  • Grumbacher Academy except for:
    • Cerulean Blue Hue (contains PBk9)
    • Davy’s Grey (contains PBk9)
    • Hooker’s Green Light Hue (contains PBk9)
    • Ivory Black (contains PBk9)
  • Holbein (except for Ivory Black)
  • Ken Bromley except for:
    • Transluscent Grey, 
    • Payne’s Grey blue shade, 
    • Payne’s Grey Dark, 
    • Warm Sepia
    • Lamp Black
  • Lukas 1862
  • Old Holland except for:
    • Scheveningen Warm Grey,
    • Indigo Extra,
    • Payne’s Grey
    • Sepia Extra
    • Warm Sepia Extra
    • Ivory black
  • QoR (except for Ivory Black)
  • Rembrandt (except for Ivory Black & Lamp Black)
    • Note on Lamp Black – lot of sources quote this color as non-vegan, even though it is made with PBk6 – carbon black. PBk6 pigment is vegan so I can only assume they add something else that isn’t vegan that they don’t add to their other colors. It could also be a mistake, as most sources quote Lamp Black as not vegan but fail to list Ivory Black (which is PBk9 and definitely not vegan).
  • ShinHan PWC (except for Ivory Black)
  • Utrecht (except for Ivory Black and Payne’s Grey)
  • White Nights – there are mix info about whether it contains honey on secondary websites and zero info on their website. I finally got confirmation that all their colors are vegan.
  • Winsor & Newman Cotman (except for Ivory, Raw Umber & Viridian Hue)

Non-Vegan Brands

  • Blockx (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Isaro (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Jackson’s (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Lutea (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • M. Graham (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Renesans both tubes and pans (contain honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Roman Szmal (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Schmincke (contains ox gall)
  • Sennelier (contains honey in the binder) 🐝
  • Winsor & Newton Professional (I’m guessing it contains ox gall? Couldn’t find any documentations though, only that the entire range is not vegan.)

Unclear – the following brands either does not indicate clearly or there are mixed resources on whether it is vegan or not. If you find primary sources that say either they are vegan or not, please do contact me with a link to the primary source!

  • Art Spectrum – they don’t contain honey and they use synthetic ox gall. However, could not find anywhere on their website & materials that categorically state that they are vegan. It’s likely to be vegan but it’s hard to stay for sure.
  • Blick – it does not say on their website either way.
  • Cass Arts – it does not say on their website either way.
  • Daler Rowney Pro and Aquafine – their website does not say categorically either way.
  • Grumbacher Finest & Academy – their website does not state either way. Their safety data does list glycerine rather than honey.
  • Kusakabe – Their website does not state either way.
  • MaimeriBlu – Their website does not state either way. They do sell a separate watercolor binder base that contains honey, and also an ox gall medium.
  • Mijello Mission Gold – I personally thought they did not contain honey but several secondary websites state they do. I could not find anything on their website that categorically states either way.
  • ShinHan Professional – their website is under construction/renewal at the moment so I couldn’t get any primary source to state either way.
  • Turner – there’s no information on their website that states either way.

For all the unsure brands, I have emailed them and will update this list (and the database as I get replies from them.