Medical & Lab Labels
Two quite different jobs share this page, and specifying one as though it were the other is the usual mistake. A specimen label has to be legible and stay put for days. An asset label on an analyser has to still be readable in five years. Almost nothing about the two constructions is the same.
Specimen and sample labels
Short life, high volume, and the priority is legibility rather than longevity. Coated paper is usually the right answer and the economical one: it takes a thermal, laser or inkjet overprint cleanly, so you can add patient or sample data at the point of use.
What it does have to survive is handling. Tubes go into racks and centrifuges, containers get wiped, and anything that gets wiped needs an ink and a topcoat that will not smear when it is. Small-diameter tubes are the other constraint: a 13 mm tube has a tight radius, so the label wants a thin, compliant facestock and a wrap that leaves a readable flag or a clear window down the side. Send us the tube and we will size it properly.
Frozen and cryogenic samples
The moment samples go into storage the specification changes. A standard adhesive will not bond to a vial that is already cold, and paper wicks the condensation that forms every time a rack comes out of a freezer. For samples held at low temperature we move you onto freezer stock, and for anything going into liquid nitrogen vapour phase onto cryogenic labels, which are built for that specifically. Research peptide vials have their own page at peptide labels.
Asset, equipment and calibration labels
Different brief entirely. These stay on an instrument, a fridge, a cabinet or a piece of plant for years, through cleaning agents, alcohol wipes and daily contact. They are built on synthetic film or metallised stock with a durable adhesive, and the print goes under a laminate so a wipe-down does not take the serial number with it.
Most of these carry sequential numbers or barcodes. We print those variable on the same pass, so a run of four hundred asset tags arrives already numbered rather than needing anything applied afterwards.
Ordering
No minimums, so a single department ordering two hundred labels is a normal order. Tell us the container or the equipment, the environment, how long the label has to last and whether you will be overprinting it, and we will spec it against that. Free samples if you want to put one through your own wash-down or your own freezer first. Where a label has to satisfy a standard or an accreditation requirement, send us the wording and we will set it; confirming that the wording is right 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 medical & lab labels?
Tell us your product, size and quantity — we'll recommend the right material and send free samples.