Default color for emails composed in Mac Mail

Hi, I realize that this was asked some time ago but the responses didn't actually address the problem as they all involved doing something once the email was being composed - rather than just setting a default as with other apps/programs.

Via Mail>Preferences>Fonts & Colors and clicking Select next to "Message font" I can only set the font family, typeface and size. The drop down in the top left corner of the Fonts window has the option "Color" but when selecting a different color there is no "OK" or other option to accept a change in color, so it does nothing and the default composing color remains black.

Thanks all

Alex