Get Started Pad Printing on Athleisure Today

Even prior to the pandemic, before the days of endless Zoom calls and business attire from the waist up, athleisure was on the rise. The early 2000s presented a shift in trends for how and when to wear sports apparel. Today there is no shame in wearing joggers out for errands, or even if paired with a jacket, to dinner. Athleisure didn’t cannibalize the sportwear market, rather it strengthened it. It allowed sportswear and athletic companies to safely broaden their customer segment from 20–40-year-old active professionals to 20-40-year-old professionals. No longer is a gym membership or 5k required to rock the style.

Common pieces of athletic wear include sports bras, t-shirts, joggers, yoga pants, shorts, sweatpants, hoodies, and more.  Today, these items are found readily available in most retail clothing stores, and in many closets.

Athletic wear materials range, but generally can be cotton, polyester, nylon, or microfiber. Often sportswear is made from synthetic materials like polyester as it is durable, lightweight, and moisture-wicking. Athleisure is a common application for tagless printing as clothing worn for comfort or for high impact workouts should be as comfortable as possible, free from itchy neck tags.

What are Tagless Labels?

Tagless labels are garment labels that are directly printed on a garment, rather than heat transfer labels or sewn-in labels. Often these tagless labels can be located on the back collar of shirts, elastic band of pants, and mid back on tank tops and sports bras.  Specially formulated ink for garments is considered to display “soft hands properties” as upon touch it is unnoticeable. Pad printing on apparel for tagless applications is popular among both small and large brands.

There are relatively low start up costs for pad printing, even lower operating costs, and lots of flexibility when it comes to bringing tagless garment label printing in-house. To read more, visit What is Tagless Printing.

Pad Printers for Athleisure

Inkcups has five pad printers for tagless applications on athletic wear. Printing on athleisure differs from printing on other categories of clothing for two reasons: material and color. As previously mentioned, athletic apparel can be made of cotton, polyester, nylon or numerous other materials.  Regarding color, sportswear are generally darker colors, shades of navy and black. Anyone in the printing industry knows the struggles printing light colors on dark materials presents, never fear, we have an option that excels in this area.

The B100, B150, 2200-PS, and the Brite Care Label Printer offer different size capabilities, different number of ink capabilities, as well as unique traits.

Pad printers for tagless applications are cost effective and reduce waste compared to comparable methods. The Brite Care Label Pad Printers offers one of the best fits for printing on athleisure as it knows no bounds when it comes to what color apparel to print on.

Brite Care Label Printing Machine

The Brite Care Label Pad Printer is truly unique as it functions first and foremost to print on dark substrates, but also is able to function as a standard pad printer! Prior to the Brite Care Label printing machine, it was difficult to achieve a white print on a dark substrate. There are tricks of the trade of course, but this machine eliminates those methods.

The Brite machine is successful in printing white or other light colors on dark apparel due to the patented Brite process, that includes the machine and specially formulated highly opaque Brite ink. Equipped with a 90 mm VersaCup® this machine can print images up to 2.56 x 1.38 in.

Athleisure can range in colors but are primarily dark. Think yoga pants, joggers, and tank tops. Even heavily patterned apparel might require bright white ink to stand out.

The Brite pad printer is a tabletop machine and has the average production speed of around 400-500 impressions per hour.

SB Brite Opaque Garment Printer Ink

The SB Brite ink comes in three colors: Brite White, Brite Pink, and Brite Yellow. These inks are all known for being super opaque, but retaining the soft hands properties, unnoticeable on touch as other pad printing inks. Paired with a Brite pad printer, the Brite inks achieve extra bright images even on dark fabrics.

As with every garment ink Inkcups offers, SB Brite dries instantly, eliminating dry time or heat to speed up the process. Simply print and stack without fear of streaking or smudging.

Depending on the size of printed image, one can of SB Brite ink will grant you 100,000 impressions.

Tagless Labels for Athleisure

The Brite Pad Printer paired with Brite ink is a deadly duo to equip any production floor with, especially for an athletic wear company. Athleisure, sportswear, and any piece of athletic clothing is not the right piece of apparel to have a tearaway tag in place.  Rather, keep up with industry trends and utilize printing directly on the apparel.

If a Brite Pad Printer peeks your interest, reach out to a member of our Inkcups’ Tagless team for more information. Contact us today.