What is Dye Sublimation Migration?

 What is Dye Sublimation Migration and How to cause It?

Dye migration means that using sublimation ink leaks from the base garment when heat transferring. Taking the red shirt as an example, if you want to print white letters on it, you might get the pink ones probably, which is called dye migration. In simple terms, you put a white shirt into the washing machine with some red clothes, you will probably get a pink shirt under the condition of warm cleaning. How does this happen?

During the heat transfer printing process, the high temperature will activate the dyes not only in the papers, but also in its original fabric, especially in polymide fabric with bright colors, because the dyes are entered into the fabric as gas and original dyes will be turned into gas under the high temperature. As a result, the dyes in the base fabric will penetrate into the decorated place. However, you can't find it until a few days later. Don't worry, dye migration actually is a common phenomenon in sublimation. Here are some methods to help you avoid it.

Ways to Avoid Dye Sublimation Migration
1. Control the right temperature when transferring
You must have noticed that temperature is an important element during sublimation printing. And the dye migration mostly happens in 300°F or higher temperature. If you make sure the temperature is lower than 300°F, you can avoid this problems successfully.

2. Using the darker ink as the base
As we mention, the white shirt will become pink when meet the red decroation. So why not use the black shirt? That's can be called a good idea. If you can't control the temperature very well, you can find another option to avoid dye migration--that's the solution. Athough the dye still leaks to the clothes, the dark base successfully conceal what has happened because people can't see it with their eyes. Dark colors are good options to realize, such as black, navy blue and green.

3. Fabric Selection
Dye sublimation migration is a common issue in texture industry and the texture manufacturers also know that. Not only do you print on the polyester, but also other blends of fabrics. So you can get known about printing effects on different fabrics. Some clothes supplies have already noticed this problem and decided to do something to deal with this problem. To prevent dye migration, the clothes must experience many times of wash without fading. Sometimes those clothes supplies may open some forums and groups on the Internet, such as Facebook, T-shirt forum and Ins. When you have some problems, you can seek help on those forums and someone can help you deal with it.

5. Test before printing
Why test is so important? No nobody wants to screw up batch of orders and lose your rich customers. We all know that dye imgration is inevitable. To decrease dye blocker, test is a good way indeed. You can ask the suppliers to offer you some samples to do the test, because fabric manufactured by different manufacturers have different quality. It's difficult to distinguish the best one from dozens of one. And you can trial them by printing patterns on it. Bro, the aim of what I have mentioned above is to make sure that you will not ruin your customer's big orders and undertake the overall loss. Different brands and colors will also lead to different printing results. You should keep it in mind that test, test and test.

The five tips I mentioned above are to help you avioid the dye imgration. Also, you need to take notes the failures and analyze the reasons that lead to it. As the old saying goes, "Failure is the mother of success." What you learned from the failures will be useful to your future texture business.

Learn from the Experience
Skill comes from the practice. As time pass, you definitely get familar with the working process of dye sublimation printer and you will feel that it's much easier for you.