Colorimetry is a fascinating piece of science that Maxwell began in 1860. From the rigorous scientific point of view, the series of assumptions on which it is based have formed, during time, a substrate of constraints, making its use unpractical for many of today tasks in color management. In everyday applications, these constraints are often not considered, producing a series of best practices and models that carry on mismatches between measures and the actual color sensation as perceived by the observers. This paper presents a synthetic critical overview on colorimetry research and its everyday use.