Traditional Amazonian Face & Body Paint | Ceremony • Identity • Beauty • Connection
Asháninka Urucum is a traditional red face and body paint prepared from the brilliant seeds of the urucum plant, one of the Amazon's most recognizable natural pigments.
Known elsewhere as urucú, annatto, or achiote, urucum has been worked with by Indigenous peoples throughout Amazonia for generations for body painting, ceremony, adornment, cultural expression, and connection with community and tradition.
Among the Asháninka, body painting is more than decoration. The red markings worn on the face and body exist within a larger cultural world of identity, beauty, ceremony, relationships, ancestral knowledge, and life in the forest.
Rainbow Bridge offers this Urucum as a traditional preparation for those who wish to approach Amazonian ceremonial practices with respect and intention.
What Is Urucum?
Urucum is the Portuguese name commonly used in Brazil for the vivid red-orange seeds of a tropical Amazonian plant.
The seeds contain an extraordinarily rich natural pigment that can be prepared into a brilliant red or reddish-orange paint.
Across different regions you may hear the same plant called:
Urucum • Urucú • Achiote • Annatto • Onoto • Bija
Long before modern pigments and cosmetics, Indigenous peoples of the Americas developed sophisticated ways of transforming plants, fruits, seeds, clays, and charcoal into colors for the body.
Urucum became one of the most important of these natural pigments.
Urucum in Asháninka Tradition
The Asháninka are one of the largest Indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, with communities extending into neighboring Brazil.
Their culture carries generations of knowledge surrounding the forest, plants, textiles, ceremony, spirituality, family, and community life.
Traditional Asháninka appearance is immediately recognizable through the kushma or cushma, their woven traditional clothing, often accompanied by necklaces, seed jewelry, headdresses, and painted designs on the face.
Urucum provides the beautiful red pigment used for traditional painting.
These markings should not be understood simply as "makeup." Body painting can exist within a larger language of beauty, identity, celebration, ceremony, protection, community, and relationship with ancestral tradition.
The Red of the Forest
There is something remarkable about the color of fresh Urucum.
The small seeds carry a pigment so vivid that only a small amount can create a striking red-orange color on the skin.
That color has become deeply associated with Indigenous visual culture throughout the Amazon.
But Urucum is more than a beautiful color.
It represents another example of the extraordinary relationship between Amazonian peoples and their environment—knowing which plant produces color, when to gather it, how to prepare it, and how that color belongs within the visual and ceremonial language of a people.
The forest provides the pigment. Tradition gives it meaning.
Ceremonial Face & Body Painting
Urucum may be applied to the face or body to create lines, dots, geometric markings, or other intentional designs.
Within Indigenous traditions, the meaning of a particular design can depend on the people, community, family, occasion, and person wearing it.
For this reason, we encourage approaching traditional Asháninka designs with respect rather than assuming every pattern is simply decorative or freely interchangeable.
For personal ceremonial use, Urucum can also be approached more simply—as a natural pigment used to mark a moment of prayer, transition, gathering, celebration, connection with the Earth, or intentional spiritual practice.
Beauty, Identity & Connection
One of the most beautiful aspects of Indigenous body painting is that beauty and meaning do not have to be separate.
Adornment can communicate belonging.
Color can carry memory.
Painting the body can transform the act of preparing oneself into ceremony.
Urucum invites us to reconsider the body not simply as something to decorate, but as something that can be intentionally prepared and honored.
Whether used for ceremony, gathering, photography, cultural study, or personal ritual, approach the pigment slowly and consciously.
How to Use Urucum
A small amount of Urucum can be used to create traditional-inspired face or body markings.
Depending on the form and consistency of your preparation, apply a small amount using a finger, fine applicator, or small natural brush.
Begin lightly—you can always deepen the pigment with additional layers.
Because natural preparations can vary from batch to batch, we recommend patch testing a small area of skin before broader application, particularly if you have sensitive skin. Avoid the eyes, inside of the mouth, broken skin, and other sensitive areas.
Urucum's natural pigment may also stain clothing, fabrics, and porous surfaces, so take care during application.
Respecting Asháninka Tradition
Urucum belongs to a much larger living tradition.
When working with Indigenous ceremonial materials, respect begins with understanding that the object or plant does not exist separately from the people who have carried its knowledge.
The Asháninka are living peoples—not a culture of the past. Their traditions continue through families, communities, artists, elders, teachers, and younger generations throughout the Amazon today.
We share this Urucum with gratitude for the knowledge that has allowed these traditions to continue.
Urucum, Urucú, Achiote & Annatto
This traditional red pigment is known by different names throughout the Americas and may be searched for as:
Asháninka Urucum • Ashaninka Urucum • Urucum Face Paint • Urucú Face Paint • Achiote Face Paint • Annatto Face Paint • Amazonian Face Paint • Indigenous Face Paint • Amazonian Body Paint • Indigenous Body Paint • Ceremonial Face Paint • Natural Red Face Paint • Amazonian Red Pigment • Asháninka Face Paint • Ashaninka Body Paint • Traditional Amazonian Body Paint
Although these terms can refer to the same plant pigment, preparation methods and cultural uses vary considerably between Indigenous peoples and communities.
Product Details
Product: Ashaninka Urucum
Also Known As: Urucú, Achiote, Annatto
Tradition: Asháninka / Amazonian
Use: Traditional face and body painting
Color: Natural red to red-orange
Character: Ceremonial, traditional, natural pigment
Traditional Context: Body painting, adornment, identity, ceremony, cultural expression
For informed adult ceremonial and personal use. For external use only. Patch test before broader application. Avoid contact with the eyes, mouth, broken skin, and other sensitive areas. Natural pigments may stain skin, clothing, and surfaces.