Acrylic Textile Ink: This ink is available in both water- and oil-based systems. The great thing about oil-based acrylic ink is that it prints similar to standard plastisol with minimal drying in the screen. Also, the ink’s feel is similar to that of gloss plastisol. Water-based acrylic ink has a softer hand; however, it is prone to dry more quickly in the screen if not properly mixed. It’s best to print water-based acrylics in high-humidity conditions and keep a spritzer bottle of water close by in case you need to spray a clogged area in the screen mesh.

Water-based inks are a good choice when a “soft hand” is desirable. A soft hand is the condition where the ink film cannot easily be felt with the hand when passed across the surface of the fabric. This affect is often used as an argument for why water-based is preferable to plastisol as plastisol has more of a hand than water-based. Water-based ink also has the advantage of being an excellent ink system for high speed roll-to-roll yardage printing. Such printing is done on large sophisticated equipment that has very large drying (curing) capacity.

Water-based ink also is a good choice where ink penetration is desirable, such as in towel printing. Towels have a high nap fabric that must be printed in a manner where the ink penetrates or wicks through to the base fabric for adequate coverage. Waterbased inks that are designed to wick into the fabric are excellent for this application. Ink wicking is not a desirable affect in most other fabric printing as it will destroy the design and registration of multiple colors.

“The largest percentage of textile screen printers still use PVC-based, phthalate-free
plastisols, but we have a good number of screen printers that have switched to [our] water-based inks when they have a customer that requests an alternative to PVC inks.