Ghosting - 1 year later

[Shirt Lord]

Here's a fun one for you vets out there.

Long and short, I'm trying to find a solution to at least help prevent ghosting for a customer who has long-term storage needs for garments. I'm almost positive that the ghosting happened due to the length of time the garments were in storage. While they claim they were always in a climate-controlled area, they were in storage for a full year before they pulled them out and noticed the ghosting. There's no guarantee that they were always in climate-controlled storage since they were transported from a main campus to up to 16 other campuses for this customer via their own trucks. They order in bulk for programs that last 2-3 years and just do fill-ins throughout the year, so that sort of explains why it took them this long to find the issue.

Here's what we did to help prevent ghosting:

• Next Level 6210 (60 cotton/40 poly) Indigo - Made in Nicaragua
• Printed with Wilflex Amazing Bright White
• Flashes and dryers as low as they could be while still maintaining consistent cure
• Garments cooled by fans while they were being stacked at end of dryer
• Not hot or humid in shop at the time of year printed (November)
• Shirts cooled completely and were double-checked before pack-out since they had to be split among 17 locations

Any of you have a similar issue in the past? Also, any solid ideas to try and help prevent this? I don't see them changing how they do things, so maybe putting a handful of Silica packets into the boxes before we ship? They are very unlikely to pay for individual poly-bagging. We have not had this issue in the past with any Next Level garments, but then again, they haven't been in boxes for more than a few days or weeks before being removed by the end customer.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[inkman996]

Amazing bright white is recommended for 100% cotton or cotton poly blend where more moderate bleed resistance is needed. My guess you need a better cotton/poly white. Your images look exactly like what happens when you print 100% cotton shirts with poly white inks and then stack on top of each other. So maybe its the bleed resistance reacting with the cotton in the shirts. I don't know which way to go in your case but I would definitely switch the ink. Sadly its so hard to replicate and test on your end.

[Shirt Lord]

Amazing bright white is recommended for 100% cotton or cotton poly blend where more moderate bleed resistance is needed. My guess you need a better cotton/poly white. Your images look exactly like what happens when you print 100% cotton shirts with poly white inks and then stack on top of each other. So maybe its the bleed resistance reacting with the cotton in the shirts. I don't know which way to go in your case but I would definitely switch the ink. Sadly its so hard to replicate and test on your end.

The thing that's difficult about that is that we've never had this issue with Amazing Bright White on these garments before. We print 10's of thousands of Next Level 60/40's and Tri-blends every year without any ghosting. This is even on garments that head straight to fulfillment warehouses (but we know the climate conditions there). We did have one issue just like you said with that ink on a 100% cotton shirt, but they were found 6 months after printing since they were in the back of a customer's warehouse that has the same atmosphere as a swamp. It was also on a custom-made and dyed shirt from who knows where and it was only a couple dozen shirts.

[inkman996]

I agree the ink should not be the problem it is the environment, since you cannot change the environment with out bagging then its the ink that would have to change. One of the ink experts should have good recommendations of what to use.

[BP]

This is gassing from the ink.

[Atownsend]

This is my worst nightmare. Seen it on B/C blends once or twice... but yeah, usually seen on cotton when using LB whites. Problem went away when we dropped texsource house brands & switched to synergy cotton, Rutland SF low bleed, Rutland super poly w. Not familiar with the wilflex ink... but maybe a bleaching agent in that one? Maybe a whack dye lot from NL as a contributing factor? Just taking random stabs since we’re chasing ghosts. Hopefully you have a forgiving customer.

[Shirt Lord]

Did some fun tests on the ghosted garments we got back from the customer and did manage to find the most likely culprit as well as a solution:

I printed an image with the same white ink we used on the order a year ago, sent it down the dryer to cure and then took it to the heat press. I folded it over onto itself and pressed it at 250 degrees, 20psi for 3 minutes. No ghost. I took the shirt off and put it in front of a fan to cool to ambient temperature and then took it back to the heat press. This time I sprayed it with a mist of water and repeated the test. It ghosted immediately. The added moisture is the vehicle that allows the print to ghost.

I ended up using Wilflex Single LC White for the next print test on the 60/40 ghosted garment. It's an ink that's really made for 100% polyester but it did manage to print fine on the blend, just had a little more hand to it than the Amazing Bright White. I cured it in the dryer and then went back to the heat press to test. I couldn't get the same result as before, no matter how long it was pressed or how much water was sprayed on the garment.

Looks like we'll be using that for this customer in the future for their blended tees. Luckily this is from a contractor who's been doing work with the end customer for years and they are not seeking anything monetary for the losses, just an assurance that this won't happen again. Of course the best thing is not to store them in a humid area for 12 months!

[Atownsend]

Nice! Thanks for the update!