Spectrophotometry Ensures Color Quality Control of High-Visibility Safety Apparel

Conspicuity is the essential function of High Visibility Safety Apparel (HVSA), protecting workers across the nation who depend on being easily seen to prevent accidents. Highway workers, construction crews, airport personnel, firefighters, and many others rely on the enhanced visibility these garments provide when performing their duties in dangerous areas with low visibility conditions.

HVSA can be important in civilian life as well, for bikers, hunters, or anyone outdoors during hunting season.

While garment manufacturers have a stake in the correct coloration of their products, in the case of HVSA, the obligation has actually been codified into law. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, workers performing dangerous tasks requiring conspicuity, such as roadside workers, must wear garments that conform to the requirements established in ANSI/ISEA 107-2015. The ANSI standards require that a garment’s material must be tested by an accredited laboratory and certified by the manufacturer with a Declaration of Conformity.

Without proper testing and the ability to guarantee that their HVSA meets ANSI standards, manufacturers face significant risks in sending these products to market. To remain competitive, manufacturers must invest in color quality control equipment and processes, including spectrophotometers/colorimeters.

How Do Spectrophotometers Ensure Compliance With High-Visibility Safety Standards?

Color measurement devices that ascertain the exact color of opaque materials by measuring reflected light are known as reflectance spectrophotometers. HVSA manufacturers depend on these solutions to ensure their clothing meets the color standards prescribed in ANSI 107. The extraordinary degree of color measurement accuracy offered by reflectance spectrophotometers makes them essential to determining the color of these garments and a standard part of safety testing.

ANSI/ISEA standards explicitly require the use of spectrophotometers/colorimeters for both color and colorfastness testing of HVSA. While third-party laboratories perform final certification, manufacturers must incorporate spectrophotometric measurement into their own quality control processes to ensure compliance. These devices prevent costly rejections and delays by confirming garments meet color requirements before they're submitted for certification or shipped to distributors.

Manufacturers can use modern spectrophotometers or colorimeters with dedicated color-measurement software to check how closely production colors align with their specified standards. The software expresses color as numerical values, making it easier to monitor small shade differences and document whether batches fall within defined tolerances.

You can also save standards in the device's memory, so technicians can quickly select the framework they need when testing different batches of clothing.

What Are the Common Causes of Inaccurate Measurements or Incorrect Coloration?

Color quality assurance is a vital aspect of production in part due to the inherent potential for variation presented by fluorescent dyes, which are often essential for enhancing conspicuity. There are specific dye formulations for each fiber type, as dyes form chemical bonds with fabrics in distinctly different ways — no color dye that works with polyester or nylon can be used with cotton and vice versa.

Further, different dye colors demonstrate varying degrees of colorfastness themselves. For each new dye color or blend used, a manufacturer must make alterations to their process. Slight differences in dye length, temperature, and raw substrate material can all throw off a batch’s final color, as can any contamination or residue from earlier batches. Resultantly, each batch must be tested to ensure the dyeing process has achieved the desired color.

ANSI/ISEA standards also require spectrophotometric measurement of colorfastness by laundry, exposure, and Xenon arc testing. These tests quantify how well the fluorescent colors maintain their conspicuity properties over time and under various conditions, which is vital for ongoing performance.

No matter how perfectly a batch of materials is dyed, if they are tested inaccurately, they will not pass. Spectrophotometers/colorimeters are fairly simple to use. However, due to the unique properties of fabric, technicians must properly prepare samples to ensure the instrument is able to take an accurate reading. Occasionally, fabric materials can bend and pillow into the measurement port, throwing off the device’s sensors. To prevent this, an appropriate amount of the material should be secured in the measurement port before readings are taken. 

Also, certain fabric weaves can allow some light to pass through. To be certain that this translucency does not alter the values of the reading, a backing material should be placed behind the fabric sample. This same backing material must be used for all subsequent measurements.

Which Spectrophotometer Delivers the Best Results for High-Visibility Safety Apparel?

HunterLab's next-generation Agera L2 is the versatile color quality assurance workhorse your lab can trust for value, performance, and accuracy. Here's why:

Quantify Daylight Appearance With Certainty

Safety clothing often uses daylight-fluorescent colors. These materials absorb energy in the short-wavelength region of the daylight spectrum and re-emit it as longer-wavelength visible light, making the color appear brighter and more vivid. This effect requires specialized illumination to quantify.

Our Agera L2 features CIE-quality D65 daylight illumination, which matches the daylight spectrum and precisely measures fluorescent colors to provide an accurate reflection of safety clothing’s appearance under outdoor conditions.

Maximize ROI Through Speed, Efficiency, and Durability

Cut both needless product waste and production line bottlenecks. The Agera L2 quickly delivers color quality insights throughout production and across lines and facilities with read times of less than 3 seconds. Know almost immediately when and where alterations are occurring to prevent costly reworks and rejects.

An extra-large 2-inch area of measurement captures data across 4 to 16 times more surface than competing models. Plus, we've included a built-in camera to support accurate sample positioning to help eliminate errors.

HunterLab's Agera L2 also offers durable, industrial-grade construction for reliability and longevity. This equipment features a sealed optical engine and enclosed housing to reduce maintenance needs and withstand harsh production environments.

Integrate Easily With Existing Processes

Agera L2 easily fits into your existing processes and workflows for optimal flexibility:

• User-friendly operation: We've engineered this spectrophotometer/colorimeter for quick, easy navigation with a touch-screen interface and one-push measurement to simplify use in familiar workflows.
• Onboard Easymatch Essentials L2 software: Our tablet-based software is built in, allowing Agera L2 to function as a completely self-contained color workstation no matter where you deploy it in your production process. No additional PC is necessary to measure, analyze, or report, and you can store up to 4 million records on the device.
• Connectivity options: With HDMI and USB ports available, you can attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse if desired. Ethernet ports and USB connectivity allow you to view, print, export, or push data to relevant SPCs and LIM systems — all from any measurement point.
• Comprehensive colorfastness reporting: Get outputs of the color scales and indices — including CIE Yxy, Y brightness, Grey Scale Color, and Grey Scale Stain — needed to build ANSI/ISEA compliance reports.
• Data control: Measure confidently without data integrity concerns. The Agera L2 includes role-based permission configurations to support security andp protect your information.
• Preprogrammed HVSA color coordinates: This spectrophotometer/colorimeter comes with built-in HVSA coordinates. Simply measure your safety apparel and get immediate pass/fail reporting without manual coordinate entry.
• Versatile measurement methods: We've designed this device for compatibility with port up or port forward measurements so there's no need to change how your operators currently present samples.
• Application diversity: Data capture capabilities across a range of sample types mean you can use the Agera L2 across many different product types and at various production points.

Document Standards Conformance With a Few Clicks

Color measurement accuracy is nonnegotiable when individual safety is at risk. The Agera L2 is engineered to deliver full color confidence with essential features like specialized optical geometry and industry-specific measurement capabilities.

This spectrophotometer/colorimeter combines Certified Grade ‘A’ CIE D65 illumination with controlled UV calibration — ideal for precise data capture in samples with retroreflective properties and fluorescent agents. The reference-grade 0°/45° circumferential optical geometry further supports precision since the configuration most closely resembles how the human eye sees color. This approach helps ensure that measurements reflect true appearance and color perception, allowing quality teams to verify conformance with confidence.

Trust HunterLab for Critical Color Measurement Solutions

With over 70 years of experience developing color measurement solutions and software to meet rigorous industry standards, HunterLab has a vast bank of institutional knowledge to pull from when designing color measurement solutions. Having worked with numerous textile companies manufacturing garments with specific neon and other high-visibility requirements, we understand the complexities of the dyeing and measuring process.

We are happy to support you in identifying the ideal spectrophotometer/colorimeter for your color measurement needs. Contact us to learn more about our renowned equipment and how we can help you find the tools you need for the highest level of color quality control.