The choice of a phase recording material strongly affects the utility of the final recording. For display holograms properties such as brightness, contrast, color range and color saturation might dominate and the choices are part art and part science. For holographic optical elements (HOEs), the extended range of properties that may require manipulation and the choices of materials to obtain each property in the required quantity makes a working knowledge of what can be done extremely useful. We present the fundamental properties of phase recordings and the fundamental properties of many phase materials so that a choice that will get you from plan to product can be more readily made. Recipes are not given but references to recipes are and modifications or procedures that can modify a well-known material may be described. The object is to make the reader aware of both the strong functions of these materials and the weak or subtle properties so that a design may be reviewed for feasibility a little more thoroughly, and hopefully the route to a functioning product will be shorter and less costly.