Of all the reflective tapes available on the market today, one stands above the rest in reflectivity and sight distance detection. In terms of brightness at night, the highest reflective tape is Orafol’s SOLAS M82 Marine Reflective Tape. It comes in three varieties. 1403 for hard flat surfaces, 1404 for flexible surfaces, and SOLAS Sew On for garments. All have the same incredibly high retro reflectivity, and all are weather resistant and made for rugged marine environments.
Oralite SOLAS tape’s high rate of reflectivity can be attributed to its micro-prismatic design, and metalized backing. The prisms embedded in the film are designed to efficiently return a high percentage of light back to the source in a tight beam like a spot light. This is different from ordinary reflective films that spread light out more like a flood light. A tighter cone of reflectivity means that visible light can be seen from much further away.
Oralite SOLAS M82 1403 or 1404 SOLAS tapes come in white (silver) only, not in any colors. (The closest tape to a colored SOLAS is a V82 film, available le at www.reflectivestore.com) Of note is that a bright micro prismatic reflective tape like SOLAS tends to have a grey or silver look to it in the daytime. It seems counterintuitive, however, when you think about the silver color of a mirror it makes more sense. In other words, SOLAS is not reflecting light back like white paper. It is reflecting like a mirror. And it for this reason, that SOLAS reflective tape is so bright.