Printing With Discharge Inks

Discharge inks are special inks used in the process of Custom Screen Printing.  Called discharge printing, or Extract Printing, this is a method of applying designs to dyed fabrics by using a color destroying agent, such as Chlorine, to bleach the dye from a garment, then infusing a dye that is immune to the agent, producing a colored design that has a soft hand feel.  Discharge printing has been around a while, but it has been only in the past few years that garment printers have been able to fully exploit it’s capabilities.  In the past, Plastisol inks had to be applied to the surface of the dark colored garment in heavy layers to block out the dark color to achieve an opaque print design.  This resulted in a print that had a thick plastic feel to it.  The discharge printing process allows the ink to absorb into the fibers of the garment, producing a fine, soft feel.

Some limitations exist with Discharge Printing.  One example of this is that the garment must be made of 100% cotton fiber to ensure a vivid print, although on occasion, a blended fabric will be used to produce a washed out, vintage look.