Good Alternatives to Jet-Pro SofStretch Heat Transfer Paper

[paulamoo]

Hi everyone,

I've been using sofstretch for years to print on to cotton tote bags but it's seems fairly impossible to get in any decent quantities at the moment. Can anyone suggest some other brands / suppliers I could try please?

I've always used the sofstretch because it doesn't feel like a transfer when printed and it washes amazingly, so I'm looking for something with similar quantities.

Thanks in advance

[UK Printed Mugs]

My thought - I think you might want to look at sublimation onto polyester bags. We used cotton bags and sofstretch for years but in reality the colours are really difficult to get right, it was a different process to everything else we did and I didn't like the fact it was a transfer that did indeed peel off after washing / use. Having moved over to 100% polyester tote bags which look great and feel so soft then we have had so many repeat orders. So perhaps look up vienna tote bags (e.g. Neil Brothers) and maybe time to move away from transfers onto sublimation.

[paulamoo]

Hi, thanks for replying I will have a look at the sublimation process and the bags you've mentioned, however, although I'm not an eco brand as such, I do make sure all of my packaging is as plastic free as possible so I'm not sure how I feel about printing on to polyester instead of cotton.

Colours aren't an issue for me - I'm printing my own designs on to the bags and there's a limited amount of designs. When the designs are first created I do test prints and tweak the colours until I get ones I'm happy with, so as long as the colours print consistently it's fine.

I've ordered a couple of alternative transfer papers to try - the first lot arrived today - I haven't printed them on to a bag yet but I don't have high hopes that they'll match Sofstretch