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Color change is a major concern when working with these composite resins and has become one of the major reasons for replacing restorations over time. Image Source: Flickr’ user Azure Dental

Last weekend we attended an epic barbeque, complete with food, drinks, and outdoor recreation which included a 100-foot giant slip n’ slide. Although the highlight of the afternoon was our group volleyball game of husbands vs. wives. I am happy to say that it was a fairly competitive game and we ended up two for two by the end of the evening. However, although I love playing volleyball, stepping out onto the court instantly brought back PTSD symptoms of my middle school years. Let just say that during my early playing days, the gym floor and I got a little too personal and met face to face. The floor won and I ended up with two little stubs of front teeth to show for it. The evidence is still visible today and each time I smile I am a little self-conscious of the color difference between my natural teeth and the composite material. Apparently dental technology was not up to par 20 years ago and the color stability of dental composite resin often deteriorated over time. Dental composites today are much more advanced and color measurement technology ensures that tooth color resins meet quality standards for appearance and longevity.

Composite resins must be carefully analyzed to ensure accurate color matching, longevity, and stability. Image Source: Flickr’ user Ida Aguilar D.D.S.

Consistent color is a sign of a high-quality product, which is why color measurement tools are essential for glass cleaner manufacturers. Image Source: Pixabay user PublicDomainPictures

Making glass cleaner seems like a simple process at first; all you need is ammonia, a soapy cleaning agent, rubbing alcohol, and water. But when you’re making cleaning products on a commercial level, this process becomes much more complex. If you mix the wrong balance of these ingredients or use subpar, impure products, your glass cleaner might leave streaks on your customers’ windows. Moreover, inconsistent products that vary too much in color between batches could scare away prospective customers who worry about the safety and quality of the cleaner. Spectrophotometric color measurement is the key to ensuring quality in your ingredients and earning your customers’ trust. By testing your products for accurate, consistent coloration, you can bolster and protect your company’s reputation, leading to better sales and more satisfied customers.

Why Blue is the Unofficial Industry Standard

When you walk through the cleaning section of any grocery store, the glass cleaners are pretty easy to spot: most of them are light blue. However, the main ingredients in glass cleaners (isopropanolamine and ammonia) are completely clear.1 This means that the blue color doesn’t originate from the primary active ingredients themselves, but from light blue dyes added for aesthetic purposes.

The reason most glass cleaners on the market are blue is that, during the 1960s, Windex’s original recipe used a translucent blue dye to help it stand out from the pack. In response to this product’s popularity, many customers began associating the color of light blue spray with glass cleaners.2 Today, many glass cleaner manufacturers still use light blue dye to attract their customers and more easily gain their trust.

Most glass cleaners on the market are blue in color, however, you can choose any color you would like when you make your cleaning products. Image Source: Pixabay user congerdesign

Smartphones have created their own industry ecosystem. Image Credit: Unsplash user Gilles Lambert

Revolutionary products create their own ecosystems. Take the automobile for example. Cars have changed the face of the world. Their usage created a need for paved roads, highways, driveways, and parking lots. As a result of their ubiquity, communities changed their layouts to make car ownership and transportation easier. It doesn’t stop there, though—the ecosystem the automobile created has large niches for secondary industries dependent on the car. Automotive repair shops, for instance, wouldn’t exist with automobiles. Neither would dealerships or, perhaps most profoundly, the innumerable factories that create automotive parts to be assembled by car manufacturers. After all, it takes about 30,000 parts 1 to build a car, and every one of those parts needs to come from somewhere, as does all the glue to hold it together. Of course, all the raw or processed materials needed to make all those automotive parts need to come from somewhere as well. Without the car, vast industries wouldn’t exist. Oh, did I mention that cars require gasoline and oil to run?

Of course, cars are old news at this point. If they don’t fly, it’s hard to get excited. What is new, and what is cool, is the smartphone. Like the automobile, the smartphone has changed the world, creating infrastructure and restructuring communities. Also like the automobile, the smartphone has created a huge ecosystem for secondary industries to thrive in. It doesn’t take 30,000 parts to make a smartphone, but the industry still requires huge amounts of precisely engineered components. For glue manufacturers, smartphones present a huge opportunity.

Smartphone glue must be absolutely clear to keep the display clean. Image Credit: Unsplash user Jordan McQueen

A color spectrophotometer can help you create bright, pigmented paintballs that can be seen from a great distance. Image source: Flickr user Lori Ho

The leaves of a nearby tree rustle as a tiny orange paintball whizzes toward its target. Milliseconds later, the thin gel capsule bursts onto the target’s deep green camouflage jacket, spreading neon orange paint all over his shoulder. The paint is so bright and vibrant that you can easily spot it, even from hundreds of feet away; every player in the vicinity immediately knows that the paint-splattered player is officially out of the game.

In a paintball competition, the vibrancy of the paint is often the only thing that keeps players honest.1 The only way to determine whether a player is out of the game is to see whether they’re covered in paint—if this paint is too dull, the game’s judges may not see it. This is why the most trusted paintball manufacturers are those who focus on crafting the most vibrant ammunition on the market. Using a color spectrophotometer, you can ensure that your paintballs are opaque and impossible to miss, which in turn will earn you a high degree of respect in the competitive paintball community.

Most paintballs contain neon dyes because these show up more clearly against dark camouflage gear. Image source: Wikimedia user BraNewbz

It takes a lot of paint to keep the Golden Gate orange. Image Credit: Unsplash User Andreas Selter

It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that the Golden Gate Bridge is painted from end to end each year. In fact, the only time it was ever painted end to end is the first time it was ever painted, nearly a century ago. Since then, there has been touch-ups and maintenance painting, as well as a 30-yr project to remove and replace lead-based paint that ran from 1965 to 1995.1. However, even these regular touch-ups require a full-time painting staff and, of course, tons of paint. The story is the same for most of the bridges in the United States. Initially and on an ongoing basis, enormous volumes of paint are required to prevent corrosion and to keep the bridge looking trim, rain or shine.

The Golden Gate Bridge is notable for its span, but also its color. The particular shade of orange used is immediately recognizable and only one large suspension bridge in the world boasts a similar color: the 25 de Abril bridge connecting Lisbon, Portugal to Almada. While few other bridges are painted similarly to the Golden Gate Bridge, most other bridges are painted with the same attention to detail. That is to say, that each bridge is its own color as distinctly as the Golden Gate is orange. Naturally, this presents an opportunity for paint makers. The supplier who mixes orange for the Golden Gate Bridge enjoys a steady revenue stream from the ongoing maintenance. Paint manufacturers able to consistently produce paint that meets the color specifications of bridges stand to benefit from a constant flow of revenue.

Bridges across the country require constant repainting. Image credit: Unsplash User Jeffrey Blum

Dish soap color has little to no effect on its cleaning power but can have a big impact on consumer perception. Image Source: Pexels user Burst

Why does liquid dish soap have a color? After all, the essential ingredients of liquid dish soap are water, cleaning and foaming agents, antibacterials, stabilizers, and agents that control thickness and clarity.1 None of these are naturally colored candle apple green, blue raspberry, or lemon, nor do any of their mixtures result in these bright, final colors. To achieve these colors, manufacturers must mix in dyes during the blending process. So why go to the extra trouble, spending extra time and money procuring, assessing, and admixing dyes? For the same reason that perfumes are included: customer perception.

Many customers will seek out a liquid dish soap by color. Image Source: Pexels user Pixabay

Ink color options and combinations are endless, so special attention must be paid to mixing and matching inks. Ink color density directly affects color outcome, and careful measurement of both density and color are necessary to achieve desired results. Image Source: Flickr CC user ben [deleted]

My years in the printing industry taught me one thing—color matters. But when you’re working with ink, color matching is a challenge, especially if you have high standards. Ink color density plays an important role for in-line color printing and has a direct effect on color uniformity and final outcome. Color density measurement can be achieved in several ways, of course, but spectrophotometers are the most versatile option for advanced control and quality.

Many major print media and label corporations are unaware of their options—or the capabilities of spectrophotometric instrumentation. As product supplies and industry needs continue to change, new innovations in spectral technology are keeping pace. And since challenges in ink color density measurement can affect many areas of product development, instrumental analysis is a key method of staying competitive in a growing market.