It’s starting to heat up, meaning more families are headed to the water to cool down. Whether you love the beach, lake, river, or pool there’s nothing more important than water safety, and this chart from Aquatic Safety Connection is a good place to start. While many parents recognize the importance of swim lessons, deciding which colors to dress your children in before hitting the water can be life-saving. Even if you have the cutest swimsuits for your kids, if they don’t pass this swimsuit color visibility test, you might need to find other options.
So how does it work? Alive Solutions conducted several tests in a lake, light bottom, and dark bottom pool to determine which colors were the most visible, and as you may have guessed, light and bright took home the prize for the most effective.
Alive Solutions dropped colored clothing on the surface of a murky-bottomed lake (top row of the photo) and observed from a shoreline perspective (second row of images) and from an elevated perspective (third row of images) to see how visible each item was. In just 18″ of water and on a sunny day, they found that the top performing colors were neon yellow, neon green, and neon orange.
Alive Solutions was quick to point out that colors were the most visible on top of the water, reinforcing how important it is that kids can swim or wear life jackets and that they are being supervised. Anything that drops below the surface, regardless of color, immediately becomes harder to see.
The experts also conducted the same observations in both a light and dark pool. Photographed on top of the water and below the surface with water agitation, neon pink and neon orange were the top two colors that maintained visibility.
A swim instructor and mom also confirmed the study’s findings in a video on TikTok. She starts by saying her daughter is wearing a blue swimsuit—a color she doesn’t normally buy—bought specifically for the video. “Look at how difficult it is to see her under the water. And this is in calm water. This is not with a whole bunch of other kids playing and splashing around and having a good time.”
@scarnati.swim Just dont do it! Why think about which bathing suits for the splash pad? Just buy bright ones!! ☀️☀️ #selfrescue #selfrescueswimming #selfrescueswim #watersafety #drowningpreventionawareness #springhillisd
♬ original sound – Nikki Scarnati
The main takeaway? Shop for bright and contrasting colors no matter what type of water you’ll be enjoying this summer (though obviously no amount of neon will replace adult supervision). If you’ve never heard of the swimsuit color visibility test, you likely have friends who haven’t either. Do them a solid and share this before the swimsuit shopping begins.
