This is a collaborative post
Over the past few years, customised t-shirts have shot back up in popularity. After a little lull, people have come back to their senses and realised the creative potential these kinds of customisations can provide.
Whether you’re handing out t-shirts at your band’s next gig or you need a new uniform for your restaurant, you’ll want to get it just right – part of that process lies in choosing the right fabric. From pure cotton to bamboo, let’s take a look at your main options.
Pure cotton
A classic option for high-quality t-shirts is pure cotton. T-shirt printing companies such as Screen Textiles often recommend going with these kinds of options, for a number of reasons. In terms of wearability, cotton is soft and breathable, and as a result, tends to be pretty comfortable.
It also absorbs ink very well, withstands heat, and is suitable for a range of different printing techniques. Pure cotton can be more expensive than blended fabrics, but it’s still typically very affordable. You do need to watch out for shrinking as well, but again, most t-shirt producers should have prewashed and pre-shrunk the t-shirts that they sell.
Cotton blends
Another very common option is blended cotton. In most cases, this will be some combination of cotton and polyester; the exact combination will vary, but t-shirts made from this kind of blend will typically contain between 50 and 90% cotton.
While cotton blends are a great option for printing, they don’t tend to result in quite as vibrant an end result as pure cotton t-shirts would. They’re not quite as breathable, but the polyester does mean that the fabric will be a little stronger than it would be if it were just cotton.
Polyester
In some cases, it might be appropriate to use custom t-shirts made from pure polyester. Pure polyester is highly durable, and should wear very well in harsh environments. That being said, most people don’t find it nearly as comfortable as pure cotton or cotton blends – while it does wick moisture well and dry very quickly, it’s just not as soft.
You also have to be careful about heating polyester to high temperatures, and will need to make sure that you use an appropriate printing method. In many cases, printing companies choose to go with sublimation printing to get the best effect.
Bamboo
Lastly, in recent years bamboo has risen in popularity as a natural alternative to cotton. While it started off as a relatively premium option, that was primarily due to how uncommon it was. Many wearers find that it’s even softer than cotton, but it doesn’t absorb ink quite as well. It’s a nice premium option to offer, but won’t be necessary in all cases.
While there are obviously other options when it comes to t-shirt customisation, at the moment these are definitely the most popular. It’s worth noting that all of the options listed above will perform better or worse in different environments – take a moment to think about what you need from your t-shirts, and then progress with your research from there.
Disclosure: This is a collaborative post