Integral color

Pigment (liquid, powder or granular) batched into the mix so it colors the full mass.

Use case
New pours: driveways, patios, slabs
Durability
High — survives chips and wear
Price band
Mid, scales with intensity

How does integral color work?

You order integral color by naming the manufacturer color and the dosage, and the ready-mix plant doses it at the batch plant or the driver adds it at the yard. Dosage is expressed as pounds of pigment per hundredweight of cementitious material, so the same color number lands differently if the mix design changes cement content or swaps in fly ash or slag. Get every truck on one job from the same plant and the same pigment lot, because a mid-pour switch shows up as a visible line you cannot wash out. The most common failure is not the pigment at all: adding water at the site dilutes the paste and lightens that truck, and uneven finishing or curing burnishes some panels darker than others. Efflorescence will also haze a colored slab for the first several months, which reads as fading but is surface salt, not lost pigment.

Named colors

Screen colors are approximate. Obtain a physical sample from the manufacturer before specifying. Color names and swatch systems are manufacturer trademarks, shown here as editorial reference with a link to the official chart.