Wash Care Ribbon

CW-60 is our wash care and waterproof ribbon, and it is the only grade listed for textile labels. In the grade table it is listed for nylon satin labels, polyester satin labels, taffeta labels and woven fabric labels. Those are the narrow woven tapes used for garment care, size and composition labels.

The table also says what CW-60 is not for. Paper labels and rigid synthetic labels are not wash care jobs, and for those the right ribbon is wax, wax-resin or resin. If you print care labels, use CW-60 rather than borrowing a resin grade built for rigid films.

Our other grades are chosen by the label material and the print's exposure to chemicals and abrasion. CW-60 is chosen by the label being a textile tape that will be washed. A care label meets heat, water, detergent and flexing together, which is a different test from a chemical drum label or a coated paper carton label.

That is why CW-60 is a separate grade and not a footnote to CW-28 or CW-33. The resin grades list polyester, polypropylene, polyimide and similar rigid films. They do not list satin or taffeta. If you are comparing grades for a garment line, start with CW-60 and a sample of your own tape, and keep the resin grades for rigid synthetic labels.

Set the printer the way Zebra's manuals advise for any ribbon: use the lowest darkness that gives good print quality, and raise it in small steps. A setting that is too high can burn through the ribbon and wear the printhead. Use a ribbon at least as wide as the tape, so the printhead stays covered, and reload the ribbon if you see grey lines or tracks with no print, which usually mean a wrinkle.

Then test the way the garment will be treated. Print a batch on your own tape, put it through the wash, dry and press programme that your care label specification names, and scan the barcodes afterwards, keeping one untouched label to compare. Zebra advises pre-testing every ribbon for its end use, and for a care label the end use is the wash programme itself.

Care labels are narrow woven tapes, so the ribbon is usually narrower than the ribbon used for paper shipping labels. We slit CW-60 in widths between 25mm and 160mm and in lengths from 50m to 600m, on half-inch or 1-inch cores with notched cores available, wound inside or outside. Tell us your tape width and printer model, and we confirm the size and winding.

Standard sizes have no minimum order and are dispatched the same day. A free sample is available, so you can print your own tape and run your own wash programme before ordering volume. MSDS is available on request.