Who doesn’t like to choose colors when it comes to being a consumer? Everyone. Like with anything else concerning the choice of your baby’s infant life jacket, safety comes first; everything else comes after. This principle holds even when choosing the color of the life vest. It is well that there is a flotation collar, to support the baby’s head; there should be a crotch strap, to snugly fit the vest on the baby; and a grab loop is indispensable to safely pulling the baby out of the water. Shouldn’t those be enough?
Why Pay Attention To Infant Life Jacket Colors?
All those significant safety features will be for nothing if you can’t see your baby’s vest in the water. If the color does not catch your eye at once, you and any rescuers will have a difficult time locating him. In the time wasted on the search, your baby might be swept away by the current or the tide, or come into collision with other semi-submerged objects, such as rocks or other boats. It is a truth that needs to be faced.
Bad color idea for a life jacket…
Unfortunately, there are infant life jackets still being made in different shades of blue, and in the duller colors white, black, and gray. All of these colors are difficult to pick out against water, whether still or choppy. Therefore, let us take a closer look at why a brighter-colored infant life jacket could save your baby’s life.
The Science Of Color Wavelengths and Intensities In Choosing Infant Life Jackets
The reason you should choose brighter, yellow-to-red colors for your infant life jacket is simply a matter of science. The basic science of colors tells us that we see colors because they are what the objects’ surfaces are reflecting. A red wagon is a red wagon because the material is absorbing everything but red light.
What makes these different colors so significant are the color wavelengths and intensities. Think of a wavelength as the reach of a color. The shorter a color’s wavelength is, the nearer you have to be to even see it as something separate from its surroundings. The simple fact of the matter is that you will not be able to perceive the color if you are beyond its wavelength reach.
The spectrum colors with the shortest wavelengths are violet and blue (and indigo, if we follow the Roy G. Biv strictly). In other words, if you are in a dark room where the light is being turned up slowly, any object that is either violet, blue, or indigo will be the last that catches your eye.
On the other hand, the spectrum colors with the longest wavelengths are red, orange, and yellow–most particularly, red and orange. If you are in a dark room and the light is slowly getting brighter, you will see whatever is red first, and then anything orange, and so on down the color spectrum.
The longer the wavelength, the higher the color intensity. You can think of intensity as the impression or impact the color makes on your eye. Warning signs such as stop lights, stop signs, and sirens are red for exactly that reason: the highest color intensity is between orange and red. It makes the fastest impression on the eye, and calls attention the quickest.
Now think of it in terms of choosing your baby’s life jacket. The important thing is that the infant life jacket can easily be seen even if the baby falls into the water. You and rescuers should be able to look and find the jacket instantly.
The further the baby floats, the more the color will help you find him or her because of the color’s reach. A red infant life jacket, or almost anything within the yellow-orange-red range, has the best chance of calling your attention even in places with waves or strong currents.
The Right Infant Life Jacket Colors: The Key To Safety
There are very few things more stylish than blue vests on the water. After all, they do match the overall scenery, the overall ambiance. They seem to fit perfectly. Which is why they should not be chosen. Blue vests, and vests within the white-gray-black spectrum, fit too well with their surroundings. When it comes right down to it, it is much more important for you to be able to see your baby in the water than it is for him or her to look good in his or her pictures. At the end of the day, the infant life jacket colors are important to your baby’s safety.
