Free design proof on every custom order: no templates, no stock SKUs
A product label is the primary place customers look for ingredients, usage directions, manufacturer details and any required regulatory information, alongside your branding. Whether it's going on a bottle, jar, tube, box or bag, the label has to survive handling, moisture and sometimes refrigeration without the print smearing or the adhesive lifting. Layout matters as much as material: barcodes need clear quiet zones, ingredient lists need legible type size, and any required disclosures need to stay put even after the design is finalized. Most orders combine full-color printing on a durable stock with a laminate or coating that protects against scuffing in transit and on the shelf.
A product label carries the information a buyer or user needs before they use or trust what's inside: the product name, ingredients or materials, manufacturer, usage or care instructions, and often a barcode for checkout or inventory. For anything edible, cosmetic or otherwise regulated, that label is doing legal work as well as marketing work, which means layout and legibility take priority over decoration.
Construction depends heavily on where the label will end up. Standard paper stock works for dry, shelf-stable goods handled indoors, while vinyl or polypropylene film holds up better against moisture, refrigeration or repeated handling. A label on a shower product or a refrigerated beverage needs an adhesive and film rated for that environment, or it will lift, wrinkle or fade well before the product is used up. A laminate or protective coating over the print adds scuff resistance for anything that travels through a warehouse or gets picked up and set down repeatedly on a shelf.
These labels show up across a wide range of categories. Food and beverage, cosmetics and personal care, household goods, supplements, and increasingly direct-to-consumer and e-commerce products that need retail-grade packaging without a full production run. In each case the label is doing double duty: informing the buyer and building brand recognition at the same time, which is part of why layout hierarchy (brand first, then key claims, then fine print) tends to matter more here than pure decoration.
Before ordering, it's worth locking down the container size and shape so the label die matches exactly, and confirming any barcode will scan cleanly once printed. Dense barcodes shrunk to fit a small label can fail to read at checkout. If the same product will be produced across several batches or flavors, planning the printing run around expected SKU volume avoids reordering small batches at a higher per-unit cost later.
Labels divide first into paper and film, and the dividing question is whether the label will ever get wet. Coated paper takes ink beautifully and costs the least, but moisture ends it. A paper label on a chilled bottle wrinkles within an hour. Film faces such as BOPP shrug off condensation, refrigeration and handling. Clear and metallised films are chosen for a specific visual effect rather than for durability alone.
Paper or film? If the labeled item is ever chilled, refrigerated or handled with wet hands, film. Everything else, paper does the job for less.
Full color covers most label work. Three cases need more: a brand color that must match across every reorder runs as a Pantone spot rather than being approximated from process inks; anything printed on clear or metallised film needs a white underbase or the colors go translucent; and labels carrying serial numbers, addresses or codes are printed as variable data, where every label in the run is different.
Can every label be different? Yes. Sequential numbers, names, addresses and codes are all variable data. Send a spreadsheet and the field mapping.
A protective layer over the print, in two grades. Varnish is a coating applied inline. Cheap, thin, enough to stop ink scuffing in normal handling. Laminate is a bonded film: thicker, tougher, and the only real answer where a label meets moisture, abrasion or chemicals. On anything that gets wiped, refrigerated or squeezed, the difference between the two shows within weeks.
Varnish or laminate? Varnish for a dry indoor label. Laminate for anything wet, chilled, handled constantly, or wiped down.
Chosen against the surface, the temperature and the intended life. General-purpose permanent covers most rigid, room-temperature surfaces. Removable releases cleanly within a reasonable window. Freezer-grade stays flexible and keeps bonding at temperatures where a standard adhesive turns brittle and lets go. High-tack exists for textured plastics, recycled board and anything that resists adhesion.
It is going on something cold. Does that matter? Considerably. Applying a standard adhesive to an already-cold surface is the single most common cause of labels falling off in the chiller.
A product label carries two jobs on one surface that pull against each other: the brand face a customer sees first, and the ingredients, directions, manufacturer details and regulatory content they check second. The layout resolves that by treating them as separate zones rather than competing elements. Front panel for identity, side or back panel for the content that has to be legible rather than beautiful.
How much room do I need for the mandatory content? More than most people plan for. Draft that panel first at real size and legible type, then design the front around what is left.
Ask for samples of any face on this list before committing to a run. How a stock takes ink and handles moisture is impossible to judge on screen.
An inline coating that stops ink scuffing in normal handling. It is thin and inexpensive, and it is the right answer for a dry indoor label that will not be wiped, chilled or gripped.
A bonded film rather than a coating. Thicker, tougher, and the only real protection where a label meets moisture, abrasion or cleaning chemicals. On chilled and handled products the difference from varnish shows within weeks.
Metallic foil pressed into the label under heat, applied to selected elements. Against an uncoated or matte ground a single small foil element does more visual work than any amount of additional color.
Relief pressed into the material, or a clear resin lens poured over the face. Both add a physical dimension a flat label cannot have: emboss for texture, dome for depth and abrasion resistance.
Same family, genuinely different jobs. Your current selection is highlighted.
| Label | From | Build | Order it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom Labels | $175 | Every layer specified | Nothing standard fits the job |
| Product Labels | $145 | Brand panel plus mandatory content | It sells the product and carries the details |
| Food Label | $175 | Regulatory panel, food-safe adhesive | Ingredients and nutrition are required |
| Bottle Labels | $169 | Film face, wraparound, laminated | It gets cold, wet and gripped |
| Clear Labels | $180 | Clear film, white underbase | The container should show through |
| Die Cut Labels | $179 | Custom outline die | A rectangle or circle will not do |
| Domed Labels | $210 | Cut to a custom outline | The shape is the artwork, not a rectangle |
| Metallic Foil Labels | $180 | Metallised film beneath the ink | Large metallic areas or metallic color |
| Embossed Foil Labels | $190 | Emboss registered to foil | Seals and authenticity marks |
| Bar Code Labels | $150 | Contrast, resolution, quiet zone | It has to scan every time |
| QR Code Labels | $150 | Module size to scan distance | A phone camera has to read it |
| Shipping Labels | $165 | Thermal face, carrier format | It moves through a carrier network |
| Mailing Labels | $140 | Sheet or roll, high volume | Hundreds or thousands of addresses |
| Address Labels | $145 | Sheeted, uncoated, writable | Envelopes, by printer or by hand |
| General Purpose Labels | $140 | Standard shapes and stock | Dates, contents, internal marking |
| Business Labels | $160 | Standard commercial format | Everyday branded commercial use |
| CD Labels | $170 | Concentric annular die | It spins, so it must be balanced |
More than most people plan for. Draft the ingredients, directions and manufacturer panel first at real size and legible type, then design the front panel around what is left. Doing it the other way round is why so many labels end up with unreadable six-point type on the back.
A wraparound gives you continuous surface and no alignment problem, which suits cylindrical containers. Front-and-back pairs give a cleaner brand face and are easier to apply squarely by hand. On a small container, wraparound almost always wins on usable space.
Usually yes. The label has to fit the container, and mandatory type sizes do not scale down with it. This is where a range gets expensive, so it is worth designing the smallest size first and scaling up.
If you expect content to change (a recipe, a claim, a distributor) keep that on a separate smaller label or a dedicated panel. Reprinting one small label is far cheaper than scrapping a full run of the main one.
There is a practical minimum rather than a hard one. Every run carries artwork checks, a proof and a press setup, so a very small quantity of product labels prices poorly per unit even though we will still make it. If you are ordering a small batch, ask for pricing at two or three quantities at once: the curve usually shows that a modest increase costs very little more in total.
The clock starts when you approve the proof, not when the order is placed, which is the part most people are surprised by. You get a proof first: a digital proof showing artwork against the dieline, and on clear or metallised faces exactly where white ink sits. Nothing is printed until you approve it, and on a shaped label the proof is where you first see the real outline. Turnaround after approval depends on the finish: anything laminated, foiled or die-cut adds a stage that cannot be compressed without causing problems later. Tell us the date you actually need them and we will work backwards from it rather than quoting a generic lead time.
Print-ready artwork with bleed and a safe margin, supplied as a PDF, AI or EPS. Because this product is cut to a shape, the file also needs a live vector path for the blade to follow. A JPG or PNG has no outline to cut to, so it has to be redrawn first. If your file is not print-ready, say so when you order. We would rather fix it before the proof than after the run.
Yes. Brand panel and mandatory content is the standard build, and the dimensions around it are yours to set. A size that sits efficiently on the press sheet often costs no more than a standard one, while an awkward proportion that wastes half the sheet does. Ask before you commit and we will tell you whether a small change to the dimensions saves a disproportionate amount.
In most cases they are the same product under a different name: the trade uses several terms for it depending on the region and the supplier. What actually defines this one is the build: brand panel plus mandatory content. Order it when it sells the product and carries the details. If you have seen it called packaging labels elsewhere, describe what it has to do rather than which name you found, and we will match the specification.
Yes. We provide free samples, and on product labels it is worth asking for one, because the difference between semi-gloss paper and uncoated paper is obvious in the hand and invisible on a screen. Most orders run on semi-gloss paper, but ask for whichever you are weighing up. You also get a free design proof before anything goes to press, so nothing is printed that you have not seen.
The usual choices are varnish, lamination, foil stamping. Finish is not decoration on this product so much as a decision about how long it survives and how it reads in the hand, so it is worth choosing against the job rather than the budget. Tell us where the finished piece ends up and we will say which finish is doing real work and which is only adding cost.
Yes, and that is what almost every order here is. Nothing in this catalogue is a stock item: product labels are manufactured to the specification you give us, with your artwork on them. Send your logo as vector artwork where you have it, since that scales to any size without softening. If all you have is a low-resolution file, tell us and we will say what it needs before it reaches the press.
Yes, and a repeat run is simpler than the first one. We keep your approved specification on file, so a reorder skips the setup decisions and goes straight to production. Where the job used custom tooling, that tooling is reused, which is why a shaped run costs less the second time. Tell us the previous order and we will match it rather than starting the specification again.
Yes. Regalo Print has been producing custom commercial print for businesses across the USA and Canada since 2008, and every order ships tracked. The tracking number reaches you the day the job leaves, not the day it arrives. If you are working to a fixed date, say so when you order so the production schedule is built around the delivery date rather than the other way round.
