To provide a colored composition which does not depend on paper, exhibits excellent color developability and excellent color tone, when printed on arbitrarily selected paper, has excellent handleability, odor, safety, water resistance, light resistance, and the like, enables a high recording concentration and a high image quality, and is suitable for whiting water-based inks and the like.

This colored composition characterized by containing an oil- soluble dye represented by general formula (1) [A is an aryl group or a heterocyclic group; X is an atom or atomic group which can be changed into a cation; R is a substituent; (n) is an integer of 0 to 4]. An embodiment that the oil- soluble dye is dispersed in an aqueous medium, an embodiment that contains a dye dispersion obtained by dispersing in an aqueous solvent the oil-soluble dye dissolved in a high boiling point organic solvent having a boiling point of ≥150°C and a relative dielectric constant of 3 to 12 at 25°C, an embodiment that contains colored fine particle dispersion obtained by dispersing in an aqueous solvent the colored fine particles containing the oil-soluble dye and an oil-soluble polymer, and the like, are preferable.