Tips for Avoiding Dye Migration

Have you ever put your whites in the wash, only to come back and find them pink? Probably from a red garment? Dye migration is a similar situation but for screen printing. In the screen printing industry, rather than colours mixing with hot water, the ink bleeds into the material due to high temperature, which causes discolouration (white garments are very commonly used for this process) . When working with heat transfers, it’s important to familiarise yourself with the type of garment you’re working with and the required temperature to successfully print on a garment.

Our team at Innotex Transfers are highly experienced in this area and are here to help when it comes printing onto tricky fabrics. Throughout the sections, we’ll talk you through the process behind printing correctly on garments while avoiding dye migration in future.

 

What Is Sublimation? 

It’s probably useful to understand what the sublimation process is before getting into printing. So let’s cover the basics first. Sublimation is the process where a solid immediately evaporates into a gas without reaching a liquid state. This is also referred to as dye sublimation, since it’s the dye that changes state. Sublimation isn’t just for garment printing – it also works for ceramics like mugs and also accessories like caps.

So now that you’re aware of sublimation, what is the process to print on garments? It’s a similar process to heat transfers, starting off with transfer paper. The design is printed as a reverse mirror image, using a specialist, high quality printer (this prevents fuzzy lines that can occur from a standard printer). The image is then positioned on the garment, where the heat press comes in. Through the power of heat and pressure, the ink penetrates directly into the garment material. 

Some may find that the ink bleeds when the transfer is taking place, which is down to very high temperature. Instead of pressing ONTO the garment, dye sublimation allows the ink to print INTO the material, so it becomes a part of the garment. This means the garment is more sensitive to heat as the ink is permanently integrated into the fibres, which means any mistake of dye migration becomes permanent too. One main thing to take into consideration is the type of garment you are using when going through this process. Remember the red garment example? That happens more so in a hot wash cycle, so it’s similar to adding excessive heat to a garment. Therefore, red and black garments are the most susceptible to dye migration, so if you’re going to consider printing using bright garments or dark colours, you’ll need our tips.

 

Ways To Avoid Dye Migration

If the industry just avoided printing on garments because of the risk of dye migration, the industry wouldn’t be as large as it is. Many of our garments are made using dye sublimation, including sportswear, which would be a huge loss of business. There are of course, ways to overcome the challenges faced with dye migration, which includes factors like material types and equipment. One thing to take into consideration is the heat application process. As mentioned before, high heat can cause the ink to bleed which will seep into the fabric. This will cause colour mismatch and permanently damage the garment. By trying the sublimation process on a lower heat such as under 180ºC, as opposed to 200ºC, this might allow the ink to still integrate into the garment, with just a lower temperature. 

Something else to bear in mind: sublimation printing is only made for polyester garments or garments that contain mostly polyester. It is recommended that your garment should be made out of at least 85% polyester if you are looking to sublimate on a garment that is also cotton. Printing on a garment that is 100% cotton is a no-go, as the polyester material has fibres that absorb the dye – cotton doesn’t work like that at all, which means it will result in dye migration. As touched upon before, the great thing about sublimation printing is that it works well on ceramics such as mugs, but for clothing, polyester is a must.

You might be thinking that this means you can’t print on garments like jackets because of the polyester requirements, but you’d be surprised at what the industry offers. There are some stores in the market that provide printable softshell jackets, which are made of 100% polyester, (perfect for dye sublimation!) so you’re not out of luck if you find that other softshell jackets aren’t cutting it. Still confused? Check out heat transfers for clothing explained for detailed information!

 

Our Approach To Avoiding Dye Migration

Everything we’ve covered above is great to get you back on track to print effectively on garments. However, our studio and production team at Innotex have a couple tips and tricks that we haven’t covered yet. At Innotex, we use a subliblock layer that absorbs the dye and stops it from penetrating into the ink, which is expensive, yes, but it’s really worth the investment! With all the chances of errors that can occur from sublimation printing, it’s better to invest in pricey equipment than have detrimental effects to your time as well as your stock. When approaching dye migration, it’s important to understand that bright coloured garments are generally susceptible to dye migration over less vibrant colours like pastels, so it’s not just red and black that are impacted by dye sublimation; they are just the most vulnerable out of the other colours. 

You might also find that although the garment looks fine after the sublimation process, the dye begins to migrate as time goes by. This is because dye migration can be delayed and take place a couple days later, as the dye impacts the status of the ink, causing bleeds. We suggest you do a test print on a spare piece of garment and give it up to 72 hours before committing to the process. Testing the process might sound time-consuming, but imagine having a large order and ending up with a huge pile of garments that have been ruined by bleeds. To us, that would be even more costly than taking the time to make sure your products are at the best quality. It’s better to be safe than sorry and work on a heat transfer process that has gone through trial and error.
Want to know more about heat pressing printing? Read our guide to hi-vis printing.