Kitchen Tea Towels - Ink transference after Sub.

[JCMondragon]

Hello, I would like some help with this issue, after sublimation process the ink is being transferred to anything that gets in contact with the printed surface after a few hours. This issue is happening with multiple products, different type of fabric compositions. (Kitchen Tea Towels, Lux Towels, Dishcloths, etc)

After sublimation process the towels are folded, packed and after a few hours the ink can be seen on the back side of the towel, on the cardboard sleeve used or its being transferred to another towels that had been in contact with.

We have been taking care of the following:
- Temperature and humidity controlled
- Lowered ink saturation in ICC profiling
- Dehumidified towels before sub process
- Cooling down the towels after sub process and letting them sit for a while before package (even here we've seen the transference, no packaged)
- Increased drying percentage in printing
- Pre-ironing towels (to avoid shrinkage during process and eliminate excess of humidity)
- Controlled Temperature, speed (contact time) and pressure so we can have best result and the sublimation is actually pretty nice and even vibrant colors, but ink keeps transferring after that (specially within darker/saturated colors)
- The stains caused are washable, they will disappear after first wash cycle

Pictures to illustrate the issue, please let me know if you have had similar issues and how did you resolve.

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Is the fabric 100% polyester?

[JCMondragon]

85% recycled polyester/ 15% polyamide 0.25 waffle weave, 350 gsm

[JCMondragon]

Any idea [MENTION=1209]pisquee[/MENTION]?

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"Certain fabrics like polyamide (PA) and polyviscose (PV) can stain after sublimation printing"
https://www.colourvistas.com/what-fabric-sublimate-on/

My guess was the polyamide not playing nicely