Why Your Silicone Keypad Color Doesn’t Match Your Plastic Housing
Have you ever approved a Pantone color for your silicone keypad, only to find it looks completely different next to your plastic housing? You’re not alone.(Chicarubber)
We recently ran into this with three keypad projects. Our customer made their own plastic housings and sent us a Pantone number for the silicone keys. Our engineers mixed the color and produced samples. The result? A noticeable mismatch. The customer had to ship us their housings so we could re-match and re-sample from scratch.
Here’s what that experience taught us—and what you should know before your next color-matched project.
The Problem with Pantone Alone
A Pantone number is a starting point, not a guarantee. Silicone and plastic behave differently. They reflect light differently, absorb pigment differently, and cure at different temperatures. The same Pantone code can look warm on plastic and cool on silicone—or vice versa.
There’s another variable: every engineer mixes color differently. One may lean slightly red, another slightly yellow. Without a physical reference, “close” can still be visibly wrong.
What We Do Differently Now
When color matters, we ask more questions upfront:
- How tight is your color tolerance? If you need a precise match to an existing part, say so early. “Close enough” and “dead-on” require different processes.
- Can you provide a physical sample? A Pantone number plus an actual plastic housing, silicone part, or color chip gives us a real target. We can match the direction of the shift—warmer, cooler, darker—instead of guessing.
- Should we involve our pigment supplier? For strict requirements, we bring in our raw material color house to custom-match the compound. This adds control and consistency.
The Lesson
Color matching between silicone and plastic is never automatic. If your project demands a tight match, don’t rely on a Pantone code alone. Send a sample. Tell us your tolerance. Let us match to the real thing.(Chicarubber)
We’ve learned this the hard way—so you don’t have to.
Contact us before your next silicone keypad project. We’ll get the color right the first time.
Why Your Silicone Keypad Color Doesn’t Match Your Plastic Housing
If you need to customize silicone products, please contact us at chicarubber
