The affects of light on carpet can create problems that will be revealed with the color not looking the same as it does at the retail store. This is a common problem that certainly many of you have experienced. The consumer purchases a product in a color or shade they like only to find that when it gets installed it doesn’t look like the color they chose in the store. It doesn’t match the furniture, drapes or paint on the walls. What’s the reason for this?

Color is affected by light. Without light there is no color and with light there is but different types of light affect the carpet color in different ways. There are four primary lighting affects on the color of the carpet. Fluorescent cool white or daylight, incandescent and sunlight are the primary light sources that affect a carpets color.

In the LGM Carpet seminar we use a box called a True Light Demonstrator which contains four light sources. A grow light in the demonstrator simulates daylight, then there’s a cool white fluorescent light, a day light fluorescent and an incandescent light, the most common forms of lighting carpet is exposed to. When you insert a piece of carpet into the box and it is influenced by each of the lights in separated compartments, the carpet appears to be four very different colors. The difference is obviously the lighting which makes the carpet color change. The wavelength and how it’s emitted refracts off the color in the carpet creating different hues and shade changes. This is why it’s important to ask the consumer, whether it’s a retail customer or a commercial customer, what type of lighting they have. You want to look at the carpet sample under the same type of lighting they have in the environment in which the carpet is going to be installed. If you don’t consider this and realize how important this qualification is, you could very well set yourself up for a very complicated complaint. A physical defect in the carpet is much easier to handle and resolve than a complaint for a carpet looking a different color in the place it’s installed as opposed to how it looked at the store or showroom in which it was chosen.

Another factor in the color or shade of the carpet is the shape of the fiber. Believe it or not if you’re trying to match a color in a carpet it better be made with the same fiber. The shape of the fiber will also change the way the light is reflected or refracted. An example of light refraction is sunlight passing through a glass of water creating a rainbow effect or the multi coloration color change on your credit card. An example of light reflection would be when you can see yourself in the same glass of water, like a mirror. So if you get the exact same carpet and it somehow gets made out of a trilobal fiber as opposed to a delta shaped fiber or any other fiber shape, the color it is dyed, even though exactly the same formulation, will not be the same.

Since color is the most important factor in a carpet purchase it is imperative that you insure everything you do to qualify the customer takes this into consideration. The carpet will certainly have to match other furnishings and you don’t want the customer to be disappointed. As we mentioned earlier, it’s a whole lot easier resolving a legitimate structural integrity complaint than it is a color complaint. If the customer chooses a color and it is so far off when it’s installed that it appears to be a totally different shade, it’s most likely your fault.

When a manufacturer dyes a carpet there will always be a shade variation since it is virtually impossible to get the color the exact same every time. This is a known fact, at least you should know this since most labels will say that colors vary from dye lot to dye lot. If a customer calls with a complaint that the carpet you just installed is a different color you have to go to the installation site and bring the sample with you that they chose from. You can also ask them to bring in a scrap of the carpet and compare it to the sample. Either way if the shade looks the same the culprit causing the color difference is the lighting. Now what are you going to do? The carpet isn’t defective and you sold the product in good faith you just weren’t aware that something like this could happen. This is why it is important to take the sample to the home when the job is measured so the consumer, and you, can see what it looks like in the light in which it’s going to make its new home.

A color complaint like this can be the most painful since, as we all know, the color is the most important factor in choosing a carpet. If the color turns out to be wrong almost no one is going to want to live with it. This isn’t paint that if you don’t like the color or shade you can just paint the wall over again.