How to print on heat-sensitive fabrics

There are so many different kinds of fabrics on the market. Some of them might be easy to heat press no matter how high the temperature is. The apparel’s color remains consistent and bright after burning on 200C or even higher. Occasionally, there are situations where your job could be interrupted by the problem that many companies have stuck on

Imagine you are buying a thousand of sportswear t-shirts and quickly order the same amount of transfers. You are hurrying to complete the order to your client as you have promised short terms, but at the last moment, before you start the mass printing process, you just find out that your apparel had been damaged. The color of the fabric is darker and it doesn’t disappear after cools down. Terrible, isn’t it?

Of course, there are solutions for this, but the most important tip I would recommend is to test the fabrics before you order the required transfers. It would be always better to order or produce one extra piece of jacket or t-shirt than mess up with the whole order after that

Here are some of the signs that the apparel is affected by the heat:

• Permanent changed color. The case could be combined with a bleeding process.
• Wrinkles
• Changed surface structure. Like becoming too glossy.
• Sticks on the press plate. In this case, it’s possible that the fabric is not suited for transfers at all. 

The recommended heat transfer product is the low-temperature transfer one.

The product could be mixed with the additional layer of the subli-protection transfer**. You will see that if you make a test with a normal transfer. If you see that the color of the print is somehow changed, then it’s most likely that the fabric is coated with a sublimation layer, which produces the so-called bleeding or migration. The mix of low temperature and subli-protection/anti-bleeding transfer makes us more secure than the color on the prints will not migrate. The lower the temperature the lower the chance that the fabric will release the chemicals that makes the print to “bleed”. By saying sublimation it doesn’t mean always that the fabric itself is sublimated. Usually, fabrics manufacturers color them chemically, and sometimes when the fixation has been poorly done or the colorant is too strong, then the fabric needs lower temperature for damaging the print on its surface. Therefore, we need to make a linking layer between the fabric to prevent that and additionally to decrease the transfer temperature by adding the low-temperature transfer properties. Be also aware that, rarely, but there are some fabrics so hardly processed that nothing can stop them for migration. However, in our experience, we had run into that problem once or twice, but it’s good to know and choose more carefully the apparel you are going to use.

As a conclusion, we could summarize the things we should be careful before starting a print:

• • Try before you buy it. If you are unsure about the result, just order/produce one additional apparel for testing.

• Find out if it needs a lower temperature or it only migrates. Does it shrink, or it’s just changing the color because of migration? You can always count on your transfer supplier for consultation.