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Gildan Discharge Results and a Few Notes on Discharge in General

By Rick Roth

A tip of the hat to Garrett Kaule who posted in a Facebook exchange the link to Gildan discharge ratings on the TSC Apparel website.

I personally have not tested all their shirts but they rate them A for great for discharge and C that they don’t discharge. They give a few C+ and B- grades in there as well.

I find that discharge results are not that clear cut in all cases. In the photos (which by the way are not Gildan shirts, but rather I’m using them to illustrate a point about discharge ratings in general) that follow a grade would not tell the full story as you see that some blues turn grey with discharge and other variations. The following shirts were all printed with discharge base, no pigment.

No question, this particular shirt discharges to white just using base. I assume this is the “A” rating in the Gildan chart.
These particular shirts don’t discharge all the way and leave some color, not going to pure white. They probably are similar to the “B” ratings in the Gildan chart.
These shirts were actually printed with discharge base and did not discharge one bit. They are what is called “C” probably on that Gildan discharge chart.
These shirts are a little more complicated to judge. They did not turn white and so in a way didn’t discharge, but on the other hand the blue or dark grey was removed and for some applications knowing this would be helpful in achieving a soft print.

The other thing to watch on discharge prints is that sometimes shirts are overdyed, so a bad red for example is turned into black. These shirts typically will not discharge but rather turn some weird color. Black is the one to most watch out for in terms of overdyeing.

The other thing to note with most shirt brands is that if they claim all the colors discharge, check out the royal blue and variations of that type of blue. Royal Blue and Kelly Green typically do not discharge so they would be the ones to test. Fluorescent colors also typically don’t discharge.

Here are the Gildan charts. I would always test things yourself if you can, but this chart is clearly a good place to start for Gildan shirts.

 

 

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