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As I was signing a lease for a new condo, I commented on the colour of the walls to my new landlord – I said they looked yellow, but she said they were white. She offered to paint and said I could pick the colour. This excited me because the thought of living in a space that I can only describe as used-cotton ball white repulsed me.
So I went to Canadian Tire with a skip in my step and headed straight to the “white” section of paint. This moment started my rabbit hole (re)search for a white paint that doesn’t make me cringe. I grabbed a bunch of swatches and headed to Home Depot and Lowes to find even more brands with even more versions of white.
The above image is the Metameric Cow Test. The leftt half of the image shows a cow in daylight; it appears to be one colour. The right half of the image shows the same cow in incadescent lighting (indoors) and there appears to be two colours. The entire image represent how two different colours (right side) can look identical based on the light conditions, and vice versa.
Looking at each swatch on its own made me confident in whether I liked it or not. But when I fanned the swatches out, suddenly shades of pink, blue, and yellow started appearing. Whites that once felt cool and clean, looked muddy next to other shades. Warm, creamy whites suddenly looked pinkish. All the brands had whites with names like “whitest white” or “pure white” but none of them, when fanned out, looked like the same white.
What was going on? Metamerism.
I know what you’re thinking, “layman’s terms?” Basically, metameric colours are the ones we perceive with our eyes, not the actual colour spectrum. Our eyes can’t accurately see true colours because a lot of factors contribute to how we perceive them, such as: texture/surface, material, light source, and our individual ability to perceive a spectrum of colours. This means that two whites that are actually composed of different spectral power distributions - technically different colours - may look identical to us based on the context.
Why does this matter? Because when I am standing in a fluorescent-lit store looking at pigment on paper, my perception of colour is being affected by the colour of light reflecting off the swatch that may not be a true indication of how saturated the paint will be after several coats, or on a wall rather than paper, or with a flat finish instead of semi-gloss.
So with all these variables and having to select a colour before I move in, I needed to create similar conditions to what my condo is like so I could choose a paint I would like.
Stay tuned to find out the different tests I performed to replicate my condo conditions to determine the right shade of white that wouldn’t look yellow once on my walls.