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Moisture can change the color of fabrics in deliberate, overt ways or create subtle color shifts nearly imperceptible to the human eye. Image Source: Pexels user snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com

The Unseen Emporium in London, England is more of a laboratory than a design house. Through a daring and innovative combination of fashion, chemistry, and digital technologies, the three masterminds behind the label work to produce dynamic clothing, accessories, and lifestyle goods that respond to their environments based on specific stimulants.1 Among their most eye-catching creations are extravagantly tailored leather jackets that change color as the humidity in the room fluctuates, the moisture level creating vivid chromatic shifts. The phenomenon of hydrochromism—color change in response to water—has heretofore primarily been intentionally implemented in the textile industry as a novelty in the form of color-changing umbrellas and swimwear. The Unseen Emporium, however, is bringing it to a new level of artistry.

But hydrochromic textiles are not a recent invention. Although deliberately moisture-sensitive dyes with dramatic color changes may be in their infancy, some level of hydrochromism is inherent to most textiles already in use today, often to the consternation of textile manufacturers.

Dark cotton fabrics will display a greater degree of color change in the presence of moisture. Image Source: Pexels user snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com

Accurate color matching is essential to creating high-quality products in the textile industry. Image Source: Unsplash user Charisse Kenion

If you work in the textile industry, you understand the complexities inherent to creating the perfect hues. From raw materials to processing methods, the final appearance depends on many variables that you must closely monitor to produce the colors you want. As such, color quality control is vital to product development and manufacturing to help your products live up to your vision.

However, the textile industry faces unique challenges when it comes to implementing robust color quality control systems. One of the most significant is identifying illuminant metamerism, which can be a serious barrier to color matching. Without accounting for this phenomenon, achieving the desired result becomes more difficult, potentially leading to unnecessary waste and reduced efficiency. Investing in technologies that can alert you to illuminant metamerism supports color consistency.

Changes in light source can drastically alter how we perceive color. Image Source: Unsplash user tu tu

Accurate color matching is essential to creating high-quality products in the textile industry. Image Source: Unsplash user Charisse Kenion

If you work in the textile industry, you understand the complexities inherent to creating the perfect hues. From raw materials to processing methods, the final appearance depends on many variables that you must closely monitor to produce the colors you want. As such, color quality control is vital to product development and manufacturing to help your products live up to your vision.

However, the textile industry faces unique challenges when it comes to implementing robust color quality control systems. One of the most significant is identifying illuminant metamerism, which can be a serious barrier to color matching. Without accounting for this phenomenon, achieving the desired result becomes more difficult, potentially leading to unnecessary waste and reduced efficiency. Investing in technologies that can alert you to illuminant metamerism supports color consistency.

Changes in light source can drastically alter how we perceive color. Image Source: Unsplash user tu tu

He’s looking mad, today. Well, he looks mad every day, that’s his look, mad, but today he looks like he means it. “Scott!” he shouts. It isn’t even 8 AM yet. “Yessir?” I ask. “Scott, do I look like a fool to you?” he asks. “No sir,” I say. “You look mad. That’s your look. Mad.” This was all so much easier back when he was just making rap music. But you try telling him fashion was a bad idea. “I am mad!” he shouts. “My warm brown cotton/nylon Meggings line don’t look warm brown to me. They look cool brown! I can’t sell cool brown cotton/nylon Meggings, Scott! I’m gonna look like a fool!” “You don’t look like a fool,” I try. “You look mad.” But he’s not even listening anymore. “We gotta send it back,” he’s telling himself. “We gotta send the whole shipment back. Why would they send me cool brown? Why would they play me like that?” He drops his sunglasses to his nose and stares me in the eyes. “Scott,” he asks. “Do people not take me seriously?”

Garment manufacturers take the color of the clothing they produce seriously because their clients take the color of their clothing seriously. Achieving correct, consistent color in blended natural and synthetic fibers is inherently difficult. So serious garment manufacturers incorporate objective, spectrophotometric color measurement into their manufacturing process. Because until you put a number on it, there’s no real way to tell what a designer wants when they say warm brown.

Don’t they know those are Meggings? Image Credit: Flickr User fervent-adepte-de-la-mode (CC BY 2.0)

The Ultra-Scan VIS can accurately measure carpet color because it takes texture into account. Image source: Pixabay user Frantisek_Krejci

A hotel chain has hired an interior designer to replace the old carpet design in every guestroom with something that looks more sleek and modern. After sifting through a number of swatches, the designer finds the perfect shade: a simple charcoal grey design that will contrast beautifully against the crisp white comforters and bed sheets that the hotel uses. But in order for the interior designer’s vision to truly come to life, the carpet color needs to be consistent from room to room. Not only does every guest room have to match, the hotel also needs to ensure that the carpeting looks seamless from the entrance of the room to every corner. If the hotel receives rolls of carpeting that vary in color even slightly, it will make every seam more obvious–the hotel will end up with a room that looks more like a patchwork quilt than a chic, modern space (commonly referred to as a “carpet sidematch problem”).1

This is just one of many reasons carpet manufacturers should take accurate color measurements of their products before releasing them on the market. However, it isn’t always easy to measure carpet color, even when you use color measurement tools like spectrophotometers. Because carpeting is soft, uneven and not always entirely opaque, analyzing the color of your samples can be frustratingly complicated. An instrument such as the UltraScan VIS, however, simplifies this process by allowing for optimal measurement methodology and the highest degree of color measurement precision. Unlike many other spectrophotometers on the market, the UltraScan VIS instrument is specifically designed to measure carpeting (among many other sample types), and makes the color quality control process fast, simple and extremely accurate.  

The Challenges of Analyzing Carpet Color

Carpet swatches seem easy to analyze at first glance, especially when designs feature just one solid color. However, carpeting is never truly “solid” in color, even if it appears so to the naked eye. If you look carefully at any carpet swatch, you’ll see that the tiny particles that make up the sample frequently vary in opacity, shape, and color. These three factors pose a number of challenges for manufacturers.   

Challenge #1: Opacity

Opacity is one of the first challenges you’ll come across when you try to measure the color of your sample using a spectrophotometer. Many carpet products are slightly translucent, and this becomes more obvious when you change the backing of your sample. For instance, your slightly translucent carpet sample will look lighter when backed by a light-colored background, but that same sample will appear much darker when backed by a dark-colored background. In order to get an accurate measurement, you have to standardize your sample backing.

Challenge #2: Shape

Carpeting isn’t flat. Rather, the material is flexible, and the tiny threads that make up the sample can shift with even the slightest pressure. The non-homogenous nature of carpeting makes it difficult to measure color unless you use tools specifically designed to handle textured samples. When a color measurement instrument presses into a carpet swatch, it creates a pillowing effect. The tiny carpet particles bend around the instrument’s measurement port, and this in turn can cast shadows that alter the overall color reading. To fix this, you need to take several readings in succession, then average those readings to get an accurate measurement.

Challenge #3: Color

Finally, the color of your sample or the type of dye that you use can cause a few unexpected problems for color measurement instruments. The most common problem that you may come across is the use of fluorescent dye in carpeting. This dye makes the product appear brighter and whiter than it is, and it is frequently used in white carpeting.2 Although this dye makes your products look whiter and potentially more appealing, it also makes your samples more sensitive to UV light. When your sample is exposed to the UV that naturally occurs in your light source, it can alter the overall measurement result, making your product appear lighter. This is why you need to cancel out the impact of UV on your sample or take UV into account when you measure your product’s color.

Pile heights and texture can significantly affect the appearance of your carpet samples. Image Source: Unsplash user Dane Deaner

The Grey Change scale can help detect the amount of fading that occurs in different textiles after they’re washed. Image Source: Max Pixel

A homeowner decided to wash a set of red living room curtains for the very first time, carefully following the cleaning instructions listed on the label. He avoided bleach products and washed the curtains on the delicate cycle setting. But despite his diligence, the color nonetheless faded significantly after washing; his once-red curtains were now a shade of faded pink, and they no longer matched the color scheme of the living room.

This is a common challenge that textile manufacturers face, whether they’re dyeing textiles for curtains, blankets, clothing or any other colorful fabric. If a large-scale textile manufacturer fails to identify problems with fading or color bleeding in its products early on, it could lead to customer dissatisfaction later. Yet there is a solution to this problem. Using the Grey Change and Grey Stain color scales, which are included in the software packaged with some advanced spectrophotometers, textile manufacturers can identify both fading and bleeding early on in the dyeing process. These two color scales are specifically designed to analyze color fastness and dye durability, allowing manufacturers to refine their dyeing processes and invest in the most durable dyes for their products.

The Problem with Some Colorful Textile Dyes

Certain textile dyes are more prone to fading and bleeding than others and environmental factors like exposure to UV rays or frequent washing can significantly alter product color depending on the chemical makeup of the dye.1 This is why textile manufacturers must consider the color fastness of the dye being used for each product, as different types of dyes will have different benefits and downsides.

The term “color fastness” refers to a dye’s durability against fading and bleeding; a dye that has excellent color fastness will be durable and long-lasting, even when exposed to environmental factors that cause color fading or bleeding. A dye with poor color fastness won’t be as durable. For instance, one type of dye that is known for its excellent color fastness is an azoic or naphthol dye.2 These dyes produce bright, bold colors, especially in the red and orange spectrum, and are highly resistant to fading in the wash or even when exposed to bleach. Conversely, acidic dyes tend to be resistant to color fading when they’re exposed to sunlight, but they’re much more prone to fading and bleeding after washing. Here are a few more examples of common textile dyes and their typical color fastness:

• Basic: Excellent light and wash fastness.
• Disperse: Good light and wash fastness, but sensitive to nitrogen gas.
• Direct: Fair lightfastness, but very poor wash fastness.
• Reactive: Great light and wash fastness, but prone to bleeding excess dye unless it’s washed well during manufacturing.
• Mordant: Good light and wash fastness, but only available in a small range of colors.
• Premetallized: Good light and wash fastness, but only available in a small range of colors.
• Sulphur: Fair light and wash fastness.
• Vat: Excellent color and wash fastness. It’s perhaps the most durable textile dye used by manufacturers.
• Fluorescent brighteners: Fair wash fastness, but very poor lightfastness.

While this basic list of color fastness can give you a general idea of which textile dyes will be the best choice for your textile products, the list isn’t foolproof. For example, although sulphur dye is generally fairly resistant against color fading after being washed or exposed to sunlight, some manufacturers have found that certain sulphur-dyed yarns will occasionally fade after about six months of use. This is why it’s important to test your dyes for true color fastness using the Grey Change and Grey Stain scales; every dye reacts differently with each fabric you use, so by testing each new product in advance, you may produce more durable, colorful textiles.

Textile dyes vary in color fastness depending on the chemical makeup of the dye or the type of fabric that a manufacturer uses. Image Source: Shutterstock user Pichit Tongma

La visibilidad es la función esencial de la ropa de seguridad de alta visibilidad (HVSA), que protege a los trabajadores de todo el país que dependen de ser fácilmente visibles para evitar accidentes. Los trabajadores de carreteras, los equipos de construcción, el personal de aeropuertos, los bomberos y muchos otros dependen de la mayor visibilidad que proporcionan estas prendas cuando realizan sus tareas en zonas peligrosas con condiciones de baja visibilidad.

La HVSA también puede ser importante en la vida civil, para ciclistas, cazadores o cualquier persona que esté al aire libre durante la temporada de caza.

Si bien los fabricantes de prendas de vestir tienen interés en que sus productos tengan el color adecuado, en el caso de la HVSA, esta obligación se ha codificado en la legislación. Según la Administración de Seguridad y Salud Ocupacional de los Estados Unidos, los trabajadores que realizan tareas peligrosas que requieren visibilidad, como los trabajadores de carretera, deben llevar prendas que cumplan los requisitos establecidos en la norma ANSI/ISEA 107-2015. Las normas ANSI exigen que el material de las prendas sea sometido a pruebas por un laboratorio acreditado y certificado por el fabricante con una declaración de conformidad.

Sin las pruebas adecuadas y la capacidad de garantizar que su HVSA cumple con las normas ANSI, los fabricantes se enfrentan a riesgos significativos al comercializar estos productos. Para seguir siendo competitivos, los fabricantes deben invertir en equipos y procesos de control de la calidad del color, incluidos espectrofotómetros/colorímetros.

¿Cómo garantizan los espectrofotómetros el cumplimiento de las normas de seguridad de alta visibilidad?

Los dispositivos de medición del color que determinan el color exacto de los materiales opacos midiendo la luz reflejada se conocen como espectrofotómetros de reflectancia. Los fabricantes de HVSA dependen de estas soluciones para garantizar que su ropa cumpla con los estándares de color prescritos en la norma ANSI 107. El extraordinario grado de precisión en la medición del color que ofrecen los espectrofotómetros de reflectancia los convierte en esenciales para determinar el color de estas prendas y en una parte estándar de las pruebas de seguridad.

Las normas ANSI/ISEA exigen explícitamente el uso de espectrofotómetros/colorímetros para las pruebas de color y solidez del color de los HVSA. Aunque los laboratorios externos realizan la certificación final, los fabricantes deben incorporar la medición espectrofotométrica en sus propios procesos de control de calidad para garantizar el cumplimiento. Estos dispositivos evitan costosos rechazos y retrasos al confirmar que las prendas cumplen los requisitos de color antes de que se sometan a certificación o se envíen a los distribuidores.

Los fabricantes pueden utilizar espectrofotómetros o colorímetros modernos con software específico para la medición del color con el fin de comprobar en qué medida los colores de producción se ajustan a los estándares especificados. El software expresa el color en forma de valores numéricos, lo que facilita el control de pequeñas diferencias de tono y la documentación de si los lotes se encuentran dentro de las tolerancias definidas.

También puede guardar los estándares en la memoria del dispositivo, de modo que los técnicos puedan seleccionar rápidamente el marco que necesitan al probar diferentes lotes de ropa.