What Color Is A Mirror?
We recognize that mirrors are silver when they appear to be the same color as what the mirror reflects.
What color is a mirror? When you look at photos of mirrors, they’re usually shown as having a silver color. However, it’s the color of whatever is being reflected.
A mirror, also known as a polished or smooth surface, returns an image with a reflection. So, why do mirrors look silver?
This is an odd question; you would think that a mirror would be silver because it looks silver, but silver, scientifically speaking, isn’t even a real color.
Regular mirrors are made from float glass, which is made with soda-lime ash. Soda-lime ash is green, so if you look at a mirror from the side view, it may have a slight green tint.
When you put two mirrors in front of each other to achieve the end reflection effect, you’ll notice right before the reflections fade into blackness, there is a small tint of green.
So does that mean that mirrors are green?
No, not exactly. Mirrors have an aluminum or silver mirror coating applied on the backside of the glass and protected with gray backing. So technically speaking, a mirror is just a bunch of shiny metals with some glass on top with a frame to make it pretty. Scientifically, a mirror is a color of whatever is reflecting it.
Do mirrors reflect all colors of light?
Yes, BUT they do not reflect every wavelength of the color. Meaning that yes, if you place a pink object in front of the mirror, then the reflection will be pink.
But not the exact pink color of the pink object. This is because a traditional standard mirror is about 85% reflective. You would think it is 100% because it is not see-through. This is not the case! Since the mirror coating is on the backside of the mirror, the reflection has to go through the glass, and when it is reflected, the examination is slightly dimmer than the object in real life.
You can enhance the reflection by using a Glass First Surface Mirror. The mirror coating is applied to the top of the glass, eliminating the glass barrier between an object and its reflection.
The First Surface mirror makes the mirror 96% reflective on average. There is an average because, as mentioned before, mirrors reflect different light types in different ways. With this Glass First Surface Mirror, it has an enhanced aluminum mirror coating for 450 nanometers and higher. It will be excessively reflective. At the same time, in the UV spectrum, the reflection percentage is much lower. So if you need a mirror to reflect UV light, you’ll need a different mirror called the UV Enhanced Glass First Surface Mirror.
Does a mirror show the real you?
No. The reflection that you see in the mirror is you but reversed. However, there is a way to see the real you as other people see you. This is called a True Mirror. It works by using two Glass First Surface Mirrors, putting them at a 90-degree angle. The result is reading the text on your T-shirt and seeing yourself in a completely different way!
Day after day, for a lifetime, you’ve seen a different version of yourself in every mirror you’ve looked into. The only person on earth whose real face you never see in real-time is your own. Within seconds your face stops working, and you generally look at yourself with a highly reduced set of expressions. That’s where True Mirror comes into play. When you look into it, it’s like looking at a friend! Your face lights up with pure happiness.
Are pictures more accurate than mirrors?
We can all say we look better in the mirror than in a photograph. This is simply because your mind sees yourself more in the mirror than in a picture.
So we are used to being flipped in the mirror. But which is more accurate?
We know that the mirror flips our image and that no one’s face is perfectly symmetrical. When you look into the mirror, you pay attention to certain things.
Like your lips, eyes, your nose, we never really look at our full-face as one. But when someone takes a photo of us, and we see our whole face come together. In one shot, without looking at anything specific. It looks weird. Am I right?
A photo is almost 3D, and you see sides of you that you typically don’t see in the mirror. We expect the mirror reflection, and you know what you’re looking at. Verses when someone takes a photo of you, not a selfie, then it’s completely different.
Technically, a mirror is more accurate than a photo. When you are talking face to face with someone, they tend to look at your eyes or lips. We do this when we look into the mirror, and we pay attention to specific things.
Why do mirrors flip horizontally?
Technically, the mirror isn’t flipping horizontally but from front-to-back. The only reason you would think that something is being flipped horizontally is that you are physically converting the image.
Are there different quality mirrors? And how do you know if a mirror is of good quality?
Yes! There is a massive difference between mirror qualities. If you are looking to buy a high-quality mirror, you will need to look for a good sliver coating. The coating is what makes a sheet of glass a mirror. The silvering on the backside should be thick and smooth. The best quality of a mirror is ¼ and thicker.
The thicker the glass, the better the coating will be on the backside. The thinner the glass means that the glass has a lighter layer on the rear side.
In addition to that, some of the older standard mirrors on the market do not hold up well to moist bathroom environments, causing the mirror coating to erode over time.
The Glass First Surface Mirror is preferred for scientific applications because the mirror coating is on top, providing an extremely accurate reflection. This mirror is used in barcode scanners, film scanners, telescopes, flight simulators, and more! Any robotic system utilizes mirrors somewhere in the design to keep the system nice and compact.
Now I have genuinely demystified why mirrors look silver.
