INNOVATIVE TEXTILE LABELING SOLUTIONS FOR TEXTILE INDUSTRY
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 manufacture, 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:
- Fiber content
- Country of origin
- Care symbols
- Identity of the manufacturer or the company responsible for marketing.
In Europe, the textile labelling regulation is applied to all textile products sold on the EU market. The requirements may be different from those of the FTC regulation, e.g. “countries” are not mandatory to be handled on cloth labels in the EU.
These regulations are strict, and the contents of textile labels must be relevant to help the consumer purchase and remain legible throughout the textile product’s life cycle.
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:
· Washing
· Bleaching
· Drying
· Ironing.
To go further in the harmonization of textile labelling, the international association GINETEX (created in 1963) promotes the uniform use of specific symbols in order to avoid any misinterpretation of care instructions. GINETEX has therefore introduced symbols that can be understood in all countries and languages. These GINETEX symbols are the basis of the international standard EN ISO 3758 – Textiles — Care labelling code using symbols.
Product safety – Oeko Tex® standard 100
The Oeko Tex® Standard 100 certifies that the textile product does not contain any substances that are harmful to humans. It is one of the world’s best-known textile regulations and is a real guarantee of consumer confidence.
There are several Product classes within this standard between product class I – the most sensitive textile product like baby toys and underwear – and the class IV – for Furnishing and decorative materials.
Ribbon users have a safe solution using Thermal Transfer ribbon from CISON 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 their composition (paper, synthetics or textile) and among the wide variety of inks, some of them are dedicated to print 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 CISON Thermal Transfer ribbon, the care symbols will remain legible for the long run despite these aggressive constraints.
The expertise Armor
- Inks that resist domestic and professional washing processes
- Print fineness enabling small characters and symbols to be printed
- Compatible with numerous textile print media
