Textile labelling
Textile labels are subjected to very high levels of duress throughout the life cycle of the products to which they are attached: clothing, household linen and certain automotive equipment. Clothing labels made of textile materials contain important information for the care of the products to which they are sewn or adhered and sometimes also for the purposes of identification and traceability. Whether for manufacturing, marketing or the end user, such data must remain perfectly legible.
Labelling standards for textile products. According to the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission), most textile and wool products have textile labelling requirements. The following information must appear on the garment label:
Fibre content
Country of origin
Care symbols
Identity of the manufacturer or the company responsible for marketing.
Care symbols
Care symbols have been developed in order to provide information on labels about the maximum permitted treatment and on the proper care of textiles. Every apparel item that needs to be laundered requires Textile care and recommendations to be represented by, at least, four symbols. These symbols must appear in this specific order:
Ribbon users have a safe solution using AXR TX Thermal Transfer ribbon from ARMOR which is Oeko Tex Standard 100 class I certified.
Facing textile label printing constraints with Thermal
Transfer
Textile labels are flexible and rough materials which makes the adhesion of the ink to the label much more difficult. Thermal Transfer printing is specifically made for printing labels regardless of their composition (paper, synthetics or textile) and among the wide variety of inks, some of them are dedicated to printing textile labels. Also, this technology is one of the most commonly used for clothes tag printing because it answers several needs:
Print on smooth or rough surfaces
Good for short, medium and large quantities
Possibility to print variable data
One or two side printing
To meet these textile label printing requirements certain Thermal Transfer printers and specific textile inked ribbons have been developed. All along their life cycle, textile products and their care labels endure severe external stress linked to their usage and to the intense and repetitive cleaning processes.
washing (water, detergents, softeners, abrasion)
drying (high temperature, abrasion)
ironing (high temperature, humidity, abrasion)
dry cleaning
With AXR TX Thermal Transfer ribbon, the care symbols will remain legible for the long run despite these aggressive constraints.
Fabric Label Materials Available
Fabric label materials are used to bear branding, wash care instructions and traceability information of the textile products they are attached to. They differ from standard labels with their fabric structure which is also treated for perfect compatibility with Thermal Transfer technology.
The ARMOR range of fabric label materials covers over 90% of the market needs and is carefully selected for optimum print results with AXR® TX textile resin ribbon.
