Updated: 9/22/2019
Special Tees and Prop 65
Thank you for working with Special Tees. In order to provide full disclosure, knowledge, and support to all, we have provided the information below in order to be compliant with Proposition 65 and the state requirements of California. www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Apparel Providers
At Special Tees we source quality garments and apparel through suppliers who distribute goods to decorators like us. For example: Many other garment and apparel brands (Gildan, Hanes, Jerseez, Nike, etc...) manufactures hundreds of thousands of garments and apparel each year. Suppliers purchase tee shirts (and more) from Gildan and then store the goods in warehouses across the nation. When you place an order with us for printed tee shirts or other types of embellished garments, we purchase the sizes and colors you requested from one of the suppliers below. The supplier ships your garments to us, we print or embellish them, then we provide you with the embellished product to you upon completion. Below are our main suppliers with links to their Prop 65 policy statements.
Screen Printing Products
At Special Tees we pride ourselves with providing top quality printing and products. Below are products we use in our production process, why we use them, and links to view their websites and Safety Data Sheets.
PolyOne/Wilflex Inks
We love working with PolyOne Wilflex Inks. They are top of the line in the screen printing. Below is a list of inks use from PolyOne/Wilflex. Please note: The compliance concern is regarding if the ink becomes airborne. unbound particles of respirable size. PolyOne/Wilflex inks are viscous or solid. We do not use inks in any airborne manner. Due do some ambiguity, we are happy to provide links to these product safety data sheets out of an abundance of caution. You can also view more information regarding http://www.polyone.com/resources/safety-data-sheets
PolyOne K2200 Epic Polywhite LC
Titanium dioxide
(airborne, unbound particles of respirable size) – cancer
Silica, crystalline
(airborne particles of respirable size) – cancer
PolyOne Epic Performance UB Gray
Titanium dioxide (airborne, unbound particles of
respirable size) – cancer
Rutland Inks
There are many brands of inks out there! Rutland offers some colors that Wilflex does not. You can also view more information regarding Rutland Inks at https://rutland-prod-sds.thewercs.com/External/private/search.aspx
While we use Rutland Inks from time to time, we do not currently have any in stock. When we get more in stock, we will update this page with corresponding safety data sheets.
Tech Support Inks
There are many brands of inks out there! Tech Support offers some colors that Wilflex does not.
Direct to Garment
Direct to Garment is a garment decoration process where designs are applied to shirts without needing screens. This process requires inks, as well as pretreatment solution that prepares the garment to bond with the imprint. Below are links to inks and pretreatments we use.
Brother DTG Ink
Brother DTG Pretreatment
Firebird Pretreatment
Palate Adhesives and Adhesive Removers
When screen printing garments it is necessary to affix the garment to the palate to prevent shifting during the print process. If the garment is not stabilized it will move around during the print process and will cause registration issues resulting in poor quality prints. We choose to use Water Based High Viscosity Pallet Adhesive for the majority of our printing because it is applied by hand rather than sprayed through the air. From time to time, we carefully use a spray option on heavier garments like sweatshirts and challenging garments because heavier garments require a stronger level of adhesive to prevent shifting. The spray tack provides a higher level of adhesive for these types of garments during the print process.
Manual Application Adhesive
Tekmar TB-HV Water Based High Viscosity Screen Printing Pallet Adhesive
Acetaldehyde –
cancer
Benzene – Cancer,
Developmental Toxicity, Male Reproductive Toxicity
Dioxane – Cancer
Ethylene oxide –
Cancer, Developmental Toxicity, Female Reproductive Toxicity, Male Reproductive
Toxicity
Other Screen Printing Production Chemicals
Below are a number of other production products and chemicals that we use on a case by case basis, as needed.
Nylon Catalyst
Used for printing on Nylon garments and apparel to prevent imprint from peeling, cracking, and rubbing off. Allows for longer lasting imprints
Soft Hand
Used for softening the feeling of the ink. Inks with Soft Hand mixed in feel less stiff and much softer. This is especially great for printing designs on softer thinner fabrics and "vintage-style" imprints.
Fashion Base
Fashion Base is similar to Soft Hand and is also used for softening the feeling of the ink.
Curable Reducer
This product allows the viscosity of the ink to be reduces without lessening the opacity of the ink. When curable reducer is added to inks flash times can also be reduced, thereby saving energy and speeding up production times.
Silicone Spray
Silicone Spray is used to prevent ink from sticking to the bottom of screens when printing multi-color imprints.
Sprayway Silicone Spray
NONCOMPLIANT
Spot Cleaner
During the printing process some trace ink or inky finger prints may end up on a finished product where they should not be. Spot Cleaner allows us the ability to remove such mistakes from finished garments thereby reducing waste.
NONCOMPLIANT
Screen Reclamation
In the screen printing process, mesh screens are used to hold inks. Each screen is coated with a liquid emulsion that dries on the screen. After the screens have dried they are ready for your art to be applied to the screen. We print transparencies with your art and expose the coated screens to each color your art/design requires. We then place each screen on our printing machine with the corresponding ink color. When we finish printing your order, the screens need to be cleaned so we can use them for other projects. We remove the majority of the ink manually, but the remaining ink, emulsion, and other production residuals are removed during the screen reclamation process. Below are the products we use for preparing screens and reclaiming screens.
Emulsion
KIWO Polycol One Coat COMPLIANT
Ulano Platinum Pure Photopolymer (SBQ) Textile Emulsion COMPLIANT
Ink Cleaners
Easiway Systems EasiSolv 701
NONCOMPLIANT
– TRACE AMOUNTS
1, 4
Dioxane – cancer
Ethylene oxide – Cancer, Developmental Toxicity,
Female Reproductive Toxicity, Male Reproductive Toxicity
Easiway Systems EasiStrip SUPRA
COMPLIANT
Easiway Systems PlastiSolv 842 COMPLIANT