Colorants and compositions useful as a fugitive or permanent colorant for a variety of substrates, or as intermediates for their manufacture, and having one or more improved properties of enhanced aqueous washability, compatibility with and non-extractibility from thermoplastic resins, or reactivity with resins having reactive functionality, said composition having the formula C(Z).sub.1-8 wherein:C is the residue of a reactant having from 1-8 nucleophilic site residues to which the Z moieties are attached; said Z moieties containing at least about 60 weight percent of poly(oxyalkylene) which is comprised of(a) at least one glycidol residue segment of 2-6 glycidol residues attached to a nucleophilic site of C, wherein said poly(oxyalkylene) contains a total of from 2-20 glycidol residues,(b) and wherein said poly(oxyalkylene) further contains the residues of one or more other epoxide reactants of ethylene oxide (EO), propylene oxide (PO), or butylene oxide (BO), or mixtures thereof, wherein said poly(oxyalkylene) contains a total of from about 10 to about 600 of said EO, PO or BO residues, or mixtures thereof, at least about 75 mole percent of which are EO residues,(c) and with the provisions that the ratio of the total of --0--PO-- and --O--BO-- linkages of all glycidol residues to the total of all functional oxy linkages of said glycidol residues is less than one, and the molar ratio of EO residues to glycidol residues is from 4 to 75.