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Stickiply

17 Aug 2026

Answering 1 Star Reviews of Glossy Vinyl!

Answering all of Amazons 1 star reviews about glossy vinyl sticker paper so that you can learn from our extensive testing over time of popular brands and even our own!

Transcript

Stringy adhesive isn't necessarily a manufacturer error, but it's when vinyl sticker paper sits in a hot environment for too long. The adhesive gets a little bit more pliable, a little bit like chewing gum, and so when you make a sticker sheet out of a vinyl sticker paper that has been too hot for too long, the adhesive snaps back onto your sticker sheet, leaving adhesive in places that you didn't want it. So, not good. Number two is ink smudging on photopaper settings. Now, the last bit of that is really important. You need to make sure that you're using a glossy or photopaper setting when you're printing on vinyl sticker paper that's glossy. And this is because the black pigment ink from an Epson or HP printer, etc. They don't dry on the glossy vinyl sticker paper surface. So you need to make sure that you're printing on a photo paper setting. If you are, and the ink is still smudging, it tends to mean that the vinyl is a little bit old. And we had this quite a lot when we used to order vinyl from Amazon. Because Amazon's warehouse has, you know, people order thousands of stock. It stays in the warehouse for a long time. And you might actually get a pack that's months or even years old. And that surface of that vinyl oxidizes and repels your ink, meaning that it just smudges basically. Number three was ink taking forever to dry. Now, I'm coming from a point of thinking that all of these products are acceptable, are good quality, right? They might not be, but I am coming from that point of view. So I'm answering questions as if someone is telling me this about our brand. Ink taking forever to dry usually means that you're printing on a non-photopaper setting on gossy vinyl sticker paper. Pigment black ink never gonna dry, friend. Like it's just not gonna dry, so it's always gonna be smudgeable if you use the wrong setting. Also, if you haven't installed your printer with the correct drivers, it doesn't know how much ink to put out on certain types of media. If you haven't set the media, a lot of these things are going to interrupt that process. before was paper is cream not white again we've actually already gone through this so we did try and add more whitener to our glossy vinyl sticker paper we found a happy medium now where it's much whiter than it used to be but we've tried to add lots of whitener to make it as brilliant white as the matte but that causes way more issues when it comes to ink adhesion on the paper It just ends up bleeding, and with certain colours, I'm talking blacks, I'm talking, you know, dark rouge reds and dark blues, navy blues. All of those types of really dark, intense colours, especially if people are printing RGB images, it just ends up bleeding over time. Give it two weeks and you'll have a mess. So, not worth it. Keep it cream, keep it clean. Number five was high price. Now this actually was left on one of the lower priced vinyls that was around 25p, so this was actually quite interesting. The difference between price. I can see why someone might leave a high price negative comment because if you've used, look, shipping label paper is okay. You can get some decent prints from shipping label paper, especially the glossy stuff. But then you've got to contend with the fact that it's super thin, it doesn't have a great adhesive and it's also got a yellow backing usually if it's shipping label paper. It's also a lot of the time just waterproof paper and not actual plastic, which means it's not gonna survive for a long time. So again, high price, you're paying for plastic, you're not paying for paper, you're paying for, you know, a more premium material. Number six was surface of the paper is sticky. Now this is actually true for most glossy vinyl sticker papers and that sticky part of the glossy vinyl sticker paper on the surface is actually the inkjet coating. So I would always recommend laminating your stickers if you're using glossy vinyl sticker paper because until you coat that vinyl sticker paper with water and it dries it will always be sticky. So that also covers, I think someone said something about, yeah, number nine attracts dust due to sticky coating. That sticky coating is the inkjet printable surface that has been applied to the top of the plastic to allow it to combine with your ink. So it's always going to be sticky until it gets wet. And so, yeah, I would just always say laminate and then you don't have that problem. Number seven was backing his paper, which is difficult to remove from a cutting mat. Look, I totally agree that it's more difficult to remove a paper backed vinyl sticker paper from a sticky cutting mat than it is to remove the plastic. In fact, it's usually super easy to remove the plastic. However, it's also quite difficult to cut through a plastic-backed vinyl with a standard Cricut Siser silhouette machine, cutting machine, basically. and so when we cut through our holographic which has a plastic backing or some of the metallic vinyls that have a plastic backing we actually have to use a lot more pressure sometimes the 60 degree blade and you're just not going to get the kind of complex cut that you would out of a paper backing so we're trying to move all of our vinyls to paper because we just think it's much easier for everyday crafters to get through. Number eight was melted in laser printer. Now this is quite common, actually. We tried our vinyl sticker papers and also a specific laser vinyl sticker paper from our manufacturer in our Xerox printer and also in our Oki Pro printer. And the Oki was actually surprisingly fine, but Xerox, who are known for much, much higher levels of heat and different technology, our vinyl, some of the vinyls at least, did melt inside of that machine. So I, from that point, actually took our laser compatible wording away from our printable vinyl sticker paper, until we can figure out one that works for all laser printers, because I just don't want our adhesive destroying somebody's printer, basically. Number nine, we already discussed, so moving on to number 10, ink fades really fast. Now, depending on what type of printer you've got, if you've got a printer with cartridges, that will fade pretty fast because the amount of ink that it puts down on the surface isn't very much. If you compare a HP printer with cartridges next to an EcoTank printer with liquid ink tanks, you'll find that the coating is much, much thicker, much more vibrant. et cetera, et cetera. So you want to use an EcoTank or something similar to ink EcoTank that puts out much more ink and in liquid form, but you're still using dye-based inks, which is water-based inks, which will evaporate in the sun over time. So it's not as much the paper than it is the actual inks themselves that you're using. best way to protect against this is to use a UV resistant laminate. Number 11 was not waterproof. Now some vinyl sticker papers just aren't waterproof. I've seen it. I've tested it. A lot of them say they're waterproof, water resistant, etc. We try to say water resistant more than waterproof because you shouldn't really have it, you know, have your stickers in water for a long period. But I know customers that have put them through the washer, a washing machine, et cetera, et cetera, and our stickers have been absolutely fine. I've also left some of our stickers outside on the door for up to a year, longer than a year, and they've also been fine. So I can confidently say that our sticker paper is relatively waterproof, but we'll say water resistant to be more legal. Yeah, vinyl sticker papers, they can vary. Some are more waterproof than others. Number 12 is a problem that happens to all vinyl sticker paper, which is paper jams. Paper jams from vinyl sticker paper happen often because of the temperature. Temperature changes vinyl shape and causes it to curl in both the cold and also the heat. The heat makes it more pliable and the cold makes it curl up or shrivel up a little bit. So what we've seen over the last six months, now that we've got 40,000 sheets of vinyl in our office, we've had to keep that room at above 18 degrees Celsius in order to keep the vinyl nice and flat. We've also turned it upside down. And this is because the plastic changes shape in the heat and in the cold and the paper stays pretty much normal. So even with our thicker backing the vinyl still curls. So it's always best to exercise your vinyl before putting it in the printer. And number 13, to finish it all off, packaging not sufficient. Yeah. I mean, most of the vinyls that you buy from Amazon and even independent shops, they come just in a seller bag with their front sheet, no protection, right? We at Stickiply decided probably like six to eight months ago now that we've put a piece of 1.5 mil grayboard in the back of every single pack of printable vinyl sticker paper. and people love it. People love it for crafting, but they also say that it keeps the vinyl nice and flat for the longest period of time. So we're going to continue to do that because we just think it's a nice premium up thing. We do do it ourselves, so it doesn't get done in China, it gets done here in the office, but it does keep things nice and flat and protected while shipping. Yeah, you know, why are other people doing it? Who knows? Anyway, thanks for listening. No, but when, like, when did that happen? What? When did that happen?