Glossary
What is a shade band?
A shade band is the accepted range of colour variation within which a dye lot is considered to match the standard.
Mills ship to a tolerance rather than to an exact colour, and the shade band defines it. A lot inside the band passes even though it is visibly different from another passing lot when the two are placed together.
This is why a supplier who has never had a shade complaint from a single-lot order can still receive a chargeback the first time an order spans two lots.