New Pad Printing Process a Big Win for Printing on Undergarments

Have you ever noticed the tag on the back of underwear or boxers? What color would you say the tag is? More often than not, it will be a faded, cracked or a darker looking white color. Over the years, printing tagless tags on the back of underwear from boxers to other various undergarments have been a challenge. Each of the past three methods used to print on underwear have not been beneficial to pad printing process. However, we have developed a new way to print clear and opaque white or bright looking tagless labels for undergarments that we would like to share. First lets take a look at the older and traditional methods that got us to where we are now.

The Traditional Pad Printing Process:

• Screen printing
• Heat transfer
• 2 color pad printing

Each pad printing process listed above have proved very difficult to print on undergarments and have left deficiencies in the quality of the print. Plaid boxers for example, were of the utmost challenge for screen printing, heat transfer, and 2 color pad printing. The reason being is that plaid or checkered boxers are made out of very thin material, typically wool. Therefore they have a hard time absorbing ink into the back of the garment. Many plaid boxers or other types of underwear possess dark substrates. This can make printing white ink labels difficult, as the darkness of the garment shows through.

2 Color Pad Printing

Although pad printing is the future regarding printing on tagless products, not all pad printers have been effective. The process using 2 color pad printing is somewhat complex. The pad printer would print a background layer with one color such as printing dark blue for example and then the second color (white) was printed over that first color such as the dark blue in this example. However, with 2 color pad printing, there were problems with opacity when this method was used by companies and certain brands. This meant that the white ink used to print on these substrates did not reflect light back and the darker colors from the undergarment diluted the white color of the ink.

Heat Transfer

Heat Transfer is a traditional method of printing that has worked for many years but has proven to be too costly and displays a rough texture to the label. With printing on plaid boxers for example, one would feel this rough texture from the label as the ink would sit on top of the material. I am sure anyone would feel very uncomfortable with a label rubbing and scratching against their skin all day!

Screen Printing

Like heat transfer, screen printing is a very tedious and expensive process. With screen printing on undergarments, not only is there a problem with opacity but the time to create a label for the garment can be 5 to 40 times slower than with pad printing.

Brite White Tagless Printing

What pad printing process is the solution? How can the white print adhere and be brighter than its predecessors? The solution is the Bright White tagless printer.

In regards to undergarments, the Bright White makes the opacity of the ink “pop” much better than previous machines. This is due to numerous technical advancements with the machine but essentially, the ink now stays on top of the garment much better and adheres to the fabric very well. Like we mentioned earlier, undergarments are usually made of thin, wool material and in the case of checkered boxers with dark substrates, the Brite White will print a crystal clear, sharp, and whiter look to that garment. Take a look for yourself below!

Notice in the image above that each checkered garment has numerous colors and dark colors in the fabric. Traditional methods made the white tagless tag you see very difficult to view. The Brite White has taken care of this problem and the opacity is the key. Opacity is much clearer than traditional methods and the quality is very high with the Brite White. We hope you see how this pad printer is a much upgraded version to use for undergarment tag printing. Pair your Brite Care Label Printing Machine with SB Brite Opaque Garment Printer Ink for the best results today!

Read Case Study: Tagless Pad Printing Gets Intimate.