Reflective Powder Versus Reflective Beads (click to shop)

Reflective beads and reflective powder are actually both made from glass spheres. So technically they the same thing. However, with reflective powder, the size of the bead is significantly smaller. The reason for the difference is application. Reflective powders are used for thinks like reflective tape, reflective garment trims, reflective paints, and reflective screen printing inks, where the spheres need to be microscopic. Reflective beads, which are much larger, are used for making highway and airport lines more visible at night. Two types of applications, two types of retro reflective spheres.

As a comparison, a basic reflective highway bead, the type used to make the lines on the interstate light up, is about .15 to .85 millimeters in diameter. About the size of the ball in a ball point pen, down to the size of a grain of sand. In fact, bags of either highway or airport beads are easily mistaken for sand. The reason larger beads are used for traffic paint applications is so that the beads sit up higher and reflective light coming in at sharp angles. (The picture below shows FAA Spec Airport Beads which are like Highway beads, only brighter.)

A bead or sphere in reflective powder is about .040 millimeters in size or roughly 1/4 the size of the smallest road bead. So in quantity, the smaller beads look and feel like a powder. So the advantage of this is the ability of reflective powder to mix with clear mediums to create reflective paint, stay in solution and pass through screens for screen printing applications, and lay down nice and thin for use in reflective tapes and garment trims. Reflective powder reflects well at angles and straight on. It is not used in traffic paints though since larger beads perform better for this application. (The picture below shows our reflective powder)

In summary, reflective powder is simply a collection of very small reflective beads or spheres which in volume resemble a powder. Unlike standard highway beads, the individual beads in reflective powder are not clearly visible, however, they reflect the same way the larger beads do. Lights enters the microscopic sphere, bounces and bends and then returns to the light source. Hence the term, retro reflective powder.