What is discharge printing?
Discharge printing uses an ink that bleaches the garment's own dye out of the fabric where the design sits, then replaces it with pigment. Because nothing is added on top, the print is as soft as the shirt. It only works on reactive-dyed 100% cotton, mainly dark colours.
Why it matters
It is how premium dark tees get a print with no hand-feel — the look of most high-end streetwear and garment-dyed ranges. It cannot work on polyester or on garments dyed with pigments that will not discharge.
On our floor
Tested on a swatch of the actual garment before bulk, because discharge results depend on the dye. Priced as screen print with a small surcharge.
Common questions
- Which garments can be discharge printed?
- 100% cotton, reactive-dyed — most of our dark cotton blanks. Not polyester or blends.
- Are discharge colours exact?
- Slightly softer and less saturated than plastisol; whites come out cream-white. The swatch test shows you.
- Is discharge safe?
- The activator is handled with extraction on the press and cured fully; the finished print is stable.
- Discharge or water-based?
- Water-based on light cotton; discharge on dark cotton. Same soft result.
Related terms
water-based ink
Water-based ink carries its pigment in water rather than PVC, so it soaks into cotton fibre instead of sitting on top. The print is soft,…
plastisol ink
Plastisol is the standard screen-printing ink: a PVC-based ink that sits on the fabric surface and cures under heat into a durable, opaque…
garment dyeing
Garment dyeing sews the garment first, in undyed fabric, and dyes the finished piece afterwards in a batch. It produces the soft, washed,…
screen printing
Screen printing pushes ink through a fine mesh screen stencilled with your artwork, one screen and one pass per colour. Setup is per…
Where this applies
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Twenty minutes with the people who make it — the garment, the quantity, the date.
Put it to work
Send us what you have — a garment, a logo, a rough quantity — for a quote within a working day, or book a call and we will talk it through.
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