Pretty much every month, we test new materials for printing color
labels on demand. I’m excited today as
we have a new label material that may fit many of our customer’s needs. Resistant Paper:
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| Water Resistant Label |
Refrigerated/Frozen food companies, Chemical Companies, Healthcare
applications and other companies needing water or weather resistant, less
expensive labels may want to read more of this post.
To test new materials, I typically follow the same process. As many samples are sent on sheets, I first
need to cut the materials into strips for testing.
Then I tape the strips together to form a continuous label.
And then feed them into the rear feed of the C3500 to print the
samples.
You can see that sometimes the tape leaves spaces between the cut
sheets. These spaces can make the printer
error sometimes. When it does, I just
advance the label in the printer a short distance (past the sensor) and restart
printing.
With the water resistant paper, I found these samples to print great.
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| Water Resistant Paper Labels |
The material was immediately abrasion resistant; the ink would not
smear. On the back of the sheet, the ink
would smear making it easy to tell the difference between the front and back. I immediately put the paper into water; and 24
hours later it was still intact and looking good.
Since
receiving the water resistant paper, I’ve learned this paper has achieved
BS5609 certification for the marine shipment of chemicals. If you don’t know about BS5609, read about it
here from a post I wrote several years ago. http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2012/03/bs5609-is-no-bs.html
In addition, I tested the paper with two household chemicals as surrogates
for other chemicals. First I poured
alcohol on the label; and rubbed it. The
ink did not come off the paper.
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| Alcohol Resistant Paper Labels |
Then I tested acetone; and found the paper was acetone resistant as
well.
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| Acetone Resistant Paper |
I’ve since learned this matte, water resistant paper should cost about
25% less than the current matte poly labels we sell today. This lower price combined with the resistant
characteristics should give many different companies options that they not had
in the past.
- Food companies with refrigerated or frozen food; needing something to withstand the condensation in the cold.
- Chemical companies wanting to reduce the cost of their BS5609 labels.
- Healthcare companies needing alcohol resistance; but not wanting to switch to a synthetic material.
Overall, I see this water resistant paper as a good option for many
companies. If you see a fit for this
label in your business, contact us. We’d
love to help you with your label requirements.
PS:
I also tested a new matte poly that performed as well. However, this material was “whiter” than the
matte poly film most companies use currently.
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| "Whiter" Matte Poly Labels |
If you need a whiter poly label, call us to discuss.
Guy Mikel
855-962-7670