5 Important Points To Consider For your Bottle Labels

_{Ian Renton  | 04/08/2017 | Bottle Labels}

Before you can get the very best bottle labels, you need to get the best bottles for your products. It is not just drinks but many other liquids including olive oil, cosmetics, chemicals and hair products stored in bottles. Bottles come in many shapes and sizes so the best advice I can give you is to get your bottles first. Before doing that, you also need to make sure that bottles are the most appropriate containers for your products.

My company specialises in helping start-up businesses and others that are ordering labels for the first time. Only last week, I received an enquiry for labels for 200 millilitre mini wine bottles. In order to help businesses that are new to bottle label printing, we now collect many examples of bottles and this enables us to make recommendations based on the actual size of the bottle. So, how do you get the most effective bottle labels for your purpose? The label design is influenced by several factors including:

1. The size of the bottle
2. The shape of the bottle
3. The colour of the bottle
4. The volume of information needed on your label
5. Your product
6. Your brand
7. Where your product is sold

The very best bottle labels take account of all seven of these factors. With rapid improvements in digital label printing technology in recent years, so much more is possible for your labels. For example, you may have a clear label on your bottle. The advantage of clear labels is that the labels blend into the bottle so it looks like the printing has gone straight onto the bottle. Printing directly onto a bottle is actually very rare as it is so expensive. This is why bottle labels are so common.

Clear labels are very effective if the glass is a dark colour or if the contents such as red wine are dark. As with all labels, it is important to consider the product inside the label and the likelihood of this product spilling onto the label. 

The key role of all label printing companies is to offer protection to the products. This means that your bottles must have the most appropriate label material type.  As a general rule of thumb, a strong label, often a synthetic label with a gloss or matt varnish or laminate coating, is needed for your bottle if the product such as any oil is likely to seep onto or under the label. When your bottle labels are exposed to elements, then vinyl labels are recommended as they provide protection for your labels for up to five years in heat, rain, wind, snow and rain. Vinyl labels are also used for many bottles containing chemicals. 

5 Important Points To Consider Before Ordering Bottle Labels

1. What size and shape are your bottles? It sounds obvious but it has happened before where wrongly sized labels have been printed for certain bottles. Request samples before ordering labels for a particular bottle for the first time. Ideally, you want to include most of the information so it is easily read in a store or at market or on a website.

2. How much information do you really need on your bottle labels? Your labels must stay within the law. For example, if you are selling food, then you must comply with the food standards code for labelling food. It is important that the quantity or volume matches what is in your bottle. Also, provide country of origin and important nutritional information. If you sell wine or other alcohol, then the alcohol content must be visible on the label. The amount of information needed will determine the size of your label. Do you want the whole label visible in a shop or at a market or will your label wrap around the whole bottle? Even though it is more expensive, you may consider getting two labels for your bottles so that only the brand and benefits of your products are featured on the front label.

3. Are your labels hand applied or machine applied? If you are just starting out, then almost certainly you will be applying your labels by hand as this is the easiest way of labelling your bottles. When you get a little larger, then you could invest in a machine that can label the bottles for you. If you are really ambitious, then you could hire a bottling company which will adhere the labels for you on a sophisticated bottling system involving a conveyor belt. You can refer to last month's blog about the information you must provide to get an accurate label quote. Refer to Point 7 for the eight different ways labels are printed and prepared for machine application onto bottles.

Bottle labels cannot be ordered on a whim. There is a lot of preparation needed for you to get the very best bottle labels for your purpose. Take your time to get it right. If you are just starting out, you can save money to keeping the bottle sizes and hence, label sizes to a minimum.