Dye Migration

Dye migration happens when the disperse dyes used to color polyester and poly-blend fabric turn to gas under curing heat — typically 320°F and up — and travel into the wet plastisol ink sitting on top, staining it from underneath. It shows up worst on bright reds, oranges, and some navy or black synthetic blends, and it keeps happening for a day or two after the shirt leaves the dryer as residual heat pushes dye upward, so a print that looked clean coming off the conveyor can look visibly pink by the next morning.

For the buyer this is the reason a plain white logo on a red 100%-polyester jersey can come back looking like bubblegum pink instead of white — the ink itself never had pink in it. We've had teams show up furious about a "wrong color" print that was actually correct ink gone pink overnight from the shirt's own dye, and the only real fix at that point is a reprint with the right ink system.

Printers head off dye migration by running a low-bleed or nylon-catalyzed plastisol, printing a heavier white or gray underbase to block dye from reaching the surface color, and sometimes under-curing slightly on the first pass with a second flash to limit total heat exposure. Poly-heavy performance tees, all-poly team jerseys, and dye-sublimated blanks all call for this from the start, not as a fix after the fact.

The common mistake is blaming the printer for a color shift that's actually dye migration, when the real fix is ordering migration-resistant ink from the first screen — asking what fabric content a shirt is before ordering saves the reprint.