What Is a Color Matcher and How to Become One

By ZipRecruiter Marketplace Research Team

The job duties of a color matcher involve mixing colors and inspecting materials to ensure that the colors are uniform throughout. You mix pigment to create colors for products, paints, and coatings. Your responsibilities may include using color-checking lamps to measure the shades of the paint, material, or substance in question. A color matcher can also work with cosmetics and dyes to match colors when users apply them. In this career, you usually work in a laboratory to weigh, measure, and mix colors to match with an existing formula or fix a color palette that does not match.

The qualifications that you need to start a career as a color matcher include a degree or equivalent experience in a chemical-centric field and the ability to define color shades and use color-measuring equipment. This career requires laboratory skills, and employers prefer applications who have a science degree in a subject like chemistry or materials science. Color matchers who work in a paint or auto body shop need to be able to match colors with their eyes, so experience with art may be beneficial. Customer-facing positions typically only require a high school diploma and knowledge of products about which they advise customers.