Send us whatever you have and we will match it. A PANTONE or RAL number, a Federal Standard 595 chip, a molded part, a wet sample, or a photo you upload with the request. Matching is free, and most matches come back inside a week.
Complete the form and one of our color technicians will be in touch, typically within one business day. For urgent requests, call us directly at 1-800-924-1581.
Matching is free, and so is the sample. The fastest start is a photo: upload the part, chip, or swatch you want matched right in the form. If you would rather mail a physical standard, we will provide a shipping address after you submit.
What to have ready
What happens next
You'll hear from a color technician.Usually the same business day. They review any photos you uploaded, confirm details, and, if needed, provide a shipping address for physical samples.
We formulate and trial.Your standard is read on a sphere spectrophotometer, a starter formula is built from our stock base dispersions, and a small trial is blended, drawn down beside the standard, measured, corrected, and re-run until it is inside tolerance. A hard match can run 36 trials on one worksheet.
Samples ship to you.Once the match is inside spec we ship a 0.5 kg sample for your evaluation, free. Commercial production follows approval, and there is no minimum order.
A PAT color technician will reply within one business day, usually sooner. If you have a physical color standard to send us, we'll include a shipping address in our reply.
Matching happens at our own bench in Hermon, Maine. The target is read on a sphere spectrophotometer, a starter formula is built from roughly thirty base pigment dispersions we hold in stock, and a trial batch is blended, drawn down next to the standard, and measured. If it is outside tolerance it gets corrected and run again. Matching, QC, and certificate issue all happen in the same building as the mixing, and no sample ships to an outside lab.
Working from stock bases is why the answer comes back in days: no bespoke grind for every job. Most matches are done inside a week of the standard reaching us, and effectively all inside two.
Our low-viscosity liquid dispersions are organic and inorganic pigments in a carrier vehicle. They are the format for cast urethane, plastisol, PU foam, epoxy flooring, and other systems where color is added in the liquid phase, and they work for both third-stream dosing and mass coloration. The carrier ends up in the cured part, so it is chosen to suit the system: low-viscosity plasticizer, polyether polyol, polypropylene glycol, Benzoflex, or vegetable oil. UV stabilizers, antistats, fluorescent colors, and tints are available.
For TPU and other thermoplastic elastomers processed by extrusion or injection molding, we also supply color as masterbatch. Masterbatch is pigment pre-compounded into a pelletized carrier resin matched to your material. It lets down cleanly at the press at a typical addition rate of 2 to 5 percent, with no liquid handling in a solid-state process. If the same part runs both ways, we hold one color target across the dispersion and the masterbatch.
Request a Sample
You do not need a number to get a color matched. More than half the standards we match are physical objects: a molded part, a piece cut off a roll, a wet sample in a jar. Four in ten arrive as a code, either PANTONE, RAL, Sherwin-Williams, or Federal Standard 595. About one in twenty arrives as a photograph or a color someone pulled off a web page, and we match those too.
Mail us the part. We read it directly, so an old molded piece with no paperwork behind it is a perfectly good standard. This is the largest single way work arrives here.
PANTONE, RAL, Sherwin-Williams, and Federal Standard 595 have all been matched in production here. A hex value gets you close, but sRGB is not a color standard, so we treat it as a starting point.
Upload it with the form. A photograph will not hold a tolerance on its own, so we use it to get the family and the direction right, then confirm against something physical before anything ships.
A color behaves differently in different chemistry. The same pigment dispersion that reads correctly in a plastisol can read light in a filled cast elastomer, and a system that exotherms hard can move the shade after the match was approved. The match is confirmed in the system it has to live in.
Plastisol and cast urethane are the systems we match most often. We also match into PU foam, spray polyurethane, and epoxy. If your system is unusual, or if you would rather not describe it, send it and we will work from the material. Customers ship us their own epoxy and foam systems and we match into the material they sent. That is routine work here. For epoxy coatings, flooring, and sealants specifically, see liquid color for epoxy systems.
Reverse matching works the same way. If you already buy a color from another source and want a second supply, send a sample of the material and tell us the system it runs in. We match to what is in front of us. We do not need the other supplier's formula and we do not ask for it. When the grade you specified has been discontinued and there is nowhere left to look it up, the step-by-step version is in replacing a liquid colorant you can no longer buy.
Talk to an ExpertSystems we match
Color is measured as CIELAB ΔE against your approved standard, D65 illuminant and 10 degree observer, and viscosity on a Brookfield RVF. Both readings ship on the certificate, so the tolerance is on paper.
Our specification is ΔE 1.0 or better, and we have never issued a certificate that missed it. Every batch is measured against your approved standard and ships with the reading on paper.
Most matches come back inside a week of the standard reaching us, and effectively all inside two. We hold a working palette of base dispersions in stock, so a match is bench work.
Matching, mixing, quality control and the certificate all happen at our own plant in Hermon, Maine. No sample goes out to an outside lab, which is why a shade change is a phone call.
Custom matching is free. The sample is free. There is no minimum order, and one pail is a normal commercial order here.
We do not charge for custom color matching, and the evaluation sample is free. Samples ship at 0.5 kg, which is enough to run a trial.
A single pail is a normal order. We ship paid orders at 1 kg and 0.5 kg regularly, so a low-volume part or a pilot run does not have to buy a drum to get started.
5 kg, 12.5 kg, and 20 kg pails, plus drums and totes. Lead time on commercial orders is about a week.
Our liquid color is matched and produced in the United States, so it qualifies as a Berry Amendment compliant component for military and government footwear and textile programs. It is also REACH, RoHS, and California Proposition 65 compliant, with documentation available on request.
Masterbatch is colored into a carrier resin that may be imported, so its country of origin follows that resin. For a Berry program in a molded or extruded part, tell us the requirement and we will confirm what we can supply.
How Berry applies to color
Our US-made liquid color is Berry Amendment, REACH, RoHS, and California Proposition 65 compliant. Documentation on request.
A certificate of analysis ships with every batch, carrying the measured ΔE and the viscosity with the method beside each. Technical and Safety Data Sheets come with the color. Berry Amendment statements and FDA documentation for qualifying grades on request.
Carriers based on low-viscosity plasticizer, polyether polyol, polypropylene glycol, Benzoflex, or vegetable oil, chosen to suit the system. UV stabilizers, antistats, fluorescent colors, and tints available.
PANTONE, RAL, Sherwin-Williams, and Federal Standard 595 have all been matched in production here. Federal Standard 595 was cancelled in 2017 and continues as AMS-STD-595; the chip numbers carry over, and we match either way. If the shade you need is not in a book, a physical chip or a part works just as well.
Every PANTONE and RAL code matched at this plant is listed on the shade reference, alongside Federal Standard 595, the MUTCD traffic set, the APWA underground utility colors and AR 670-1. It is evidence of range and not a stock list: a code that is not on it is matched the same way as one that is.
Most matches come back inside a week of the standard reaching us, and effectively all inside two. We hold a working palette of base dispersions in stock, so matching is bench work. If you are working to a deadline, tell us and we will tell you straight whether it is achievable.
Whatever you have. More than half the standards we match are physical objects, a molded part or a wet sample, rather than a number. Four in ten arrive as a code: PANTONE, RAL, Sherwin-Williams, or Federal Standard 595. About one in twenty arrives as a photograph or a color pulled off a web page, and we match those too. Tell us the resin system along with the color and we can start.
Color is measured as CIELAB ΔE against the approved standard on a spectrophotometer, D65 illuminant, 10 degree observer. Our specification is ΔE 1.0 or better and every batch ships with a certificate of analysis carrying the reading. We have never issued a certificate that missed it.
Ask any supplier which ΔE formula they are quoting. ΔE*ab and ΔE2000 are not the same number for the same pair of samples, and a tolerance written without the formula is not a specification.
Custom matching is free and the sample is free. Samples ship at 0.5 kg. There is no minimum order: a single pail is a normal commercial order, and we ship paid orders at 1 kg and 0.5 kg regularly. Colors are supplied in 5 kg, 12.5 kg, and 20 kg pails, drums, and totes.
Yes. Send your polyol, epoxy, or foam system and we will match into it rather than into a substitute. We match routinely into plastisol, cast urethane, PU foam, spray polyurethane, and customer-supplied epoxy and foam systems.
Yes. Reverse matching from a physical sample is routine work here. Send a part or a sample of the material you buy today, tell us the system it runs in, and we match to it. We do not need the other supplier's formula, and we do not ask for it.
Our liquid color is matched and produced in the United States, which makes it a Berry Amendment compliant component for military and government footwear and textile programs. It is also REACH, RoHS, and California Proposition 65 compliant, with documentation on request. Masterbatch is compounded into a carrier resin that may be imported, so its country of origin follows that resin and we confirm it case by case. The detail is in our article on Berry Amendment compliant color.
Work from the process. If color goes into a liquid before it cures, which covers cast PU, plastisol, epoxy, and foam, you need a liquid pigment dispersion. If color goes into a melt at a press or extruder, which covers TPU and other thermoplastics, you need masterbatch. We supply both and hold one target across them. The full comparison is in masterbatch vs liquid color.