A tip for labeling lip balms.

[kasilofchrisn]

So I have a friend who designs/prints all my labels for me.
And he does an amazing job.
I buy the blanks give him some ideas and he designs/prints them out.
So when he made my wine bottle labels this year for my homemade wines he suggested I use a book of the proper height to help me line the labels up square on the bottles and make them all consistent.
This worked pretty good.
Well lately I had to order some new lip balm tubes because I gave away all the ones I had made for Christmas.
But it turned out the tubes I bought previously were no longer available so I had to buy a different brand.
Also while I was ordering the lip balm tubes I figured I would order some new lip balm labels.
My buddy suggested I order some gloss labels as the text and pictures really seem to pop a lot better on them and my previous labels were a matte finish.
Well it turns out my new labels and tubes were both a bit bigger then the old ones.
So he had a little more room to work with on the labels but also had to move some things around as the new labels overlap slightly and the old ones did not.
also the new labels were a hair longer than we needed them to be.
trimming the bottom of the label was easy enough using a slide cutter that I already own but they had to be printed in a way that accounted for that.
Then we ran into another problem which was getting the labels to wrap around squarely.
We couldn't have any part of the label touching the screw mechanism on the bottom and a tamper tab perforation had to line up on the top.
so the size of these labels after trimming didn't leave any extra room for error.
What we came up with was drilling a 5/8 hole in a small piece of 1x2 lumber.
But instead of using a traditional drill bit I use a Forstner bit which drills a flat bottom hole.
This was the perfect size to accommodate my tubes and by drilling just as deep as the screw mechanism I could use the wood to help me line the labels up squarely without getting it on the the twist knob part of the tube.
This held my tubes tight enough that I could even hold them upside down and they wouldn't fall out of this little wooden fixture.
Anyway if you're putting labels on your lip balms this is a helpful way to line them up squarely every time.
BTW I'm using the SoGoo brand of tubes.
And I believe the labels came from onlinelabels.com

 

[Hendejm]

That is a brilliant idea! I also have a problem with not being able to line up labels squarely. This is a simple yet effective solution! Thanks so much for sharing this!!

 

[IrishLass]

Very clever! Thanks for sharing!

Labelling lip balms can definitely be tricky, for sure. The best way I eventually found to do mine with the resources I have is to lay the tubes horizontally in the rounded drip-well of my wood cutting board, which to my delight, the balm tubes fit perfectly into and lay still without rolling around when I'm trying to label them. Once I have the first 1/4" of the label lined up evenly (purely by eyeball) and firmly stuck down onto the tube, I lift the tube out of the well and finish pressing on the rest of the label. Sometimes it comes out a wee bit cockeyed, but most times I get it right. As long as it's not cockeyed enough to cover over the screw or interfere with cap, I can live with it. I don't sell, by the way. I just gift to family and friends.


IrishLass

 

[SoaperForLife]

Geez... I have always used the 1.8 x 1.8 labels for my lip balms without having any problems. The 1.8 labels don't overlap and don't cover up the mechanism. After applying the labels, I use the t-perf shrink bands making sure that the perforation lines up with the juncture of the cap and tube.

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

Interesting little jig you have there. I’ve used the labels with the little tear off strip like that and I’ve not ever run into my labels not wrapping around squarely if the perforation is lined up right on the line.

I design and print my own labels and also cut them to size on a whole sheet now to maximize paper space because those label sheets can be expensive.