# Water Based vs. Plastisol



## funkwitness (Nov 4, 2014)

I am thinking of switching from Plastisol Ink to a water based ink. 
The shirts I print on are all tri-blend t-shirts. I've heard that these are more conducive to water based inks. Can anybody confirm or deny this?
If this is in fact the case, which water based inks are the best to use?
Anything I need to know about water based inks before making the switch
Thanks.


----------



## Rabbidsquirrel13 (Jul 27, 2015)

Personally I would not suggest switching your entire operation to waterbased. While it does have excellent advantages in quality on many items, it has a lot of drawbacks as well. For instance - you will not be able to print synthetic materials (like polyester, nylon, rayon, etc.) and the discharge powder only attacks dyed cotton. 

When you print a tri-blend with water based it will always look dull because the discharge agent will only remove the color from the cotton fibers. If the shirt is only 40% cotton, then your print will be 40% as bright as a 100% cotton shirt. 

Also, there are some colors that just do not print well with water based - royal blue, kelly green, deep purple - so unless you are prepared to turn those customers away or only offer them the option of switching shirt color I would keep the plastisol and add water based as an option.


----------



## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Rabbidsquirrel13 said:


> Personally I would not suggest switching your entire operation to waterbased. While it does have excellent advantages in quality on many items, it has a lot of drawbacks as well. For instance - you will not be able to print synthetic materials (like polyester, nylon, rayon, etc.) and the discharge powder only attacks dyed cotton.
> 
> When you print a tri-blend with water based it will always look dull because the discharge agent will only remove the color from the cotton fibers. If the shirt is only 40% cotton, then your print will be 40% as bright as a 100% cotton shirt.
> 
> Also, there are some colors that just do not print well with water based - royal blue, kelly green, deep purple - so unless you are prepared to turn those customers away or only offer them the option of switching shirt color I would keep the plastisol and add water based as an option.


Besides the thread being 3 years old ... 

Water base ink and discharge are not the same thing, though the base ink may be the same. The issues you describe are specific to discharge.


----------

