The puff effect in the garment industry has been an ongoing trend over recent times, with the groovy era style designs coming back into fashion forefront. With the recent trends of puff, we decided to dive into what a puff screen print is and how to achieve the best puff print possible. This is a technique and process you’ll want to add to your shop’s repertoire to help pull in those customers wanting in on the trend.

The puff effect must be executed with technical precision. From printing technique to dialing in your flash and conveyor oven temperature, you’ll need to ensure each part of the process has been tested before going to production.

What creates the ”puff” effect in puff base?

Puff ink is a specialty ink that can be completed with water-based or plastisol ink. The ingredient that creates the puff effect is called a “blowing agent”. This allows the ink to expand, and also pull the garment fabric up creating the puff effect.

In layman terms, think of the puff as self-rising flour, and normal plastisol as plain flour. Once you bake the decoration with puff it raises during the curing/ baking process.

What is the best way to achieve a high puff print to create the best effect
on a garment?

We recommend using a screen that has a firm tension, this will ensure that the screen “pops” from the garment once it has been printed. As for mesh count, 34T – 43T, from our experience seems to yield the best results.

The lower mesh count allows you to lay down as much puff ink as possible. By laying down more ink, you’ll have a stronger deposit of puff to raise the garment.

What are major factors that affect achieving a good puff print?

• Flashing and Curing – these two are extremely important.
• Over curing will cause the puff print to crater (the edges will rise and the centre will dip down – causing a crater-like effect)
• Under curing will cause the puff print to rub off as it will not adequately cure and adhere to the garment.
• When matching colour to the Pantone Mixing System (PMS) always mix your ink to a few shades darker than your desired colour, as the puff effect will mute the finished print colour.
• Picking the right artwork – Use artwork that will be complemented by the puff print. Try to avoid artwork that have big wide blocks as it can cause inconsistencies during the curing process.

What are 3 things to avoid while puff printing?

1. Complex designs – Avoid using more than 2 colours in a puff print
2. Dull squeegees – make sure your squeegee blades are clean and sharp. Once cured, the puff print will show inconsistencies.
3. Use high quality garments – the puff ink pulls the fabric to create the puff effect, lower quality fabrics may get damaged when cured.

3 tricks when printing puff on to garments

1. Control your oven and flash cure temperature and speed. Puff prints are notoriously technical and require dialing in your equipment.
2. Colour match and perform a test strike off before going into production. A strike off refers to a printed fabric sample – this will help you identify any potential issues with the process, colour or fabric prior to moving into production printing.
3. Run a second puff screen if your press allows it, or if printing manually, flash then give your image more passes as it will give you a far better finish. Obviously this gives you more ink to puff, but also a semi sealed puff base to launch your next layer from for extra height.

Puff Screen Printing for Garments

Product Recommendations

1. Avient – NuPuff Base/Black/White

Nupuff Base and White -are easily coloured via addition of Rutland C3 Pigments, while the Nupuff Black is a ready to use puff black.

Nupuff Base and White can also be printed as a base layer under another colour to create the puff effect.

2. MagnaColours – Expanding NF (water-based puff print paste)

This is Magna Colours puff base, which is easily coloured via addition of Magnaprint
Eco Pigments.

Magna Colours Expanding Foam can also be printed as a base layer under another
colour to create the puff effect.

3. Chromaline Phat Film – 200 Micron

An easy thick stencil for maximum ink laydown and puff.

4. AlbaChem – Anti-static Dri Silicone Spray

to avoid garment fibre pick up, and to eliminate ink buildup.