Durable Labels
A packaging label has to survive until somebody opens the box. A durable label has to survive the product. That is a different brief, and it is decided almost entirely by the adhesive rather than by the material you print on.
What makes a durable label durable
The facestock is the easy part. Industrial and outdoor labels are built on synthetic film, usually vinyl, polyester or polypropylene, and the print goes under a laminate so it holds up to abrasion, oil, solvent splash and weather without going illegible.
The adhesive is where these jobs are actually won or lost. It is the thing being asked to hold onto a drum that is oily, a pallet that is rough, or a powder-coated panel that rejects most glues on contact, and to keep holding for years while the surface expands, contracts and gets knocked about. A tough facestock on a weak adhesive is just a label that falls off in one piece.
The four durable label adhesives we stock
We hold four, because no single one covers this range:
- Emulsion acrylic. The economical one, and the right answer more often than people expect. It works across most plastics and metallised materials and across a wide temperature range.
- Solvent-based, hard surfaces. Specified for surfaces that reject adhesives: varnished, sealed or slightly oily. This is the one for chemical containers and drum and barrel labels.
- Solvent-based, rough surfaces. For coarse plastic, wood and outdoor use, which makes it the usual choice behind pallet labels and waterproof labels.
- Rubber hybridised acrylic. Grips rough and oily surfaces and powder-coated parts, applies at speed, and is repositionable on some substrates, so a label can come off and go back on without wrecking itself or marking the part.
Tell us the surface and the environment and we will pick from those four. That conversation is worth having before you choose a material, not after.
Printed by us, or blank for your own printer
We print custom durable labels in full colour on our own press in Henderson. Plenty of customers need to print on site instead, so the blank durable stock we supply takes thermal, laser and inkjet, including colour on the last two. Sequential numbering and barcodes can print either way.
There are no minimums, so a run of fifty asset tags is a normal order. If you are labelling anything where the wording is set by a standard or a regulator, send us the copy and we will set it legibly at the size the part allows; confirming what the label is required to say is between you and whoever sets that requirement.
Learn more
Popular label formats
Rolls, sheets and die-cut shapes — paper, coated paper, waterproof poly and more.
Need custom durable labels?
Tell us your product, size and quantity — we'll recommend the right material and send free samples.