Online Labels Forum

I'm currently using label OL2083WJ for my mini lip balm labels and have been using them successfully for years (almost a decade!). I have a customer whose labels are coming off of her lip balms - every lip balm in the order did this!

For testing, I normally put a small piece of tape on the lip balm to join the edges of the label because the label doesn't overlap on the tube. This prevents the label from lifting at the edges until the glue is set. If I am doing an order with shrink wrap, this has not been a problem. The labels stick perfectly once the shrink wrap is removed.

For this particular customer order, I printed a test label and proceeded as normal - add it to one of my currently-being-used mini lip balms and tape the edges to keep it down. When she reached out to me describing her issue, I removed the tape from the edges and the label has proceeded to completely come off the balm. Now the lip balms I'm using are from different batches, so I don't think this is an oils issue (I'm very careful about making sure the tubes are perfectly clean before applying the labels.

The only thing I can think of is the ink is causing a problem. The labels are medium pink background with text whereas my normal labels are white background with text. I've done a few wedding orders where they wanted a dark background (dark blue) or a light background (light tan) and no one else has reported these issues. Is this a known issue with inkjet labels? Any suggestions on how I can prevent this from happening again? The customer is putting in another order (I'm so glad she is despite the issues) and I want to make sure everything works perfectly for her this time around.

My lip balms aren't nearby for pictures, but please let me know if they would be helpful and I can add them in later!

Hi Jessica

That's correct - the label for these lip balms doesn't overlap.

This video shows how the label fits on the lip balm (sorry for the poor quality - this lip balm is from ages ago)

This picture does a better job of showing the gap between the edges of the label.

Thank you Jessica! I think I've tried all of those options except the last two (the last one is not applicable here). I'll give the pressure option a try on my test lip balm and report back on the results.

For the overlapping label, do you have an off-the-shelf option or is it a custom size? I'd be interested to give it a try as the labels for me regular sized lip balms work perfectly with the slight overlap!

Thanks for sending the samples Jessica! The labels aren't quite the right size for the tubes (they are too long vertically and still don't overlap). I think I might need a custom size.

I received additional information from the customer, who has some of my regular labels and they are exhibiting the same lifting behaviour.

Increasing the pressure didn't work to get the labels to stick. For the moment, I am cutting packing tape to seal in the labels.

I'd love to hear any other suggestions you might have!

It’s definitely not just you. I ordered their weatherproof matte to try out as well. I put the sticker on different bottles and submerged them in water like I do with all other brands. To my surprise all the stickers using their matte weatherproof inkjet all feel off the bottle and the adhesive was detaching. I was so excited to try out the product as the colors were vibrant and was considering switching to purchasing the product in bulk. Really disappointed as this was a highly praised product.