Gard30, which has been developed over a period of 15 months, is water- rather than oil-based, meaning that it does not affect the quality of printed ink. It can be used on both sheetfed and web offset presses and is available from Celessence.
The product is available now in mimimum orders of 2.5kg and is priced from £74.50p/kg for orders of 5kg or more, with volume reductions applied for larger orders. It is designed to open up the high-volume fragranced printing market, with the capability of applying 50% more fragrance to paper without obscuring a printed image.
“Celessence’s speciality is microencapsulation and the understanding of the way different fragrances perform on paper,” said Celessence chief executive Suzanne Powell.
“Our role was to develop the optimum capsule design to be compatible with the new varnish, so that it performed extremely well and released fragrance with just a light touch.”
A sensory panel of Celessence staff were commissioned to check whether the developing varnish left any undesired background aromas. Once approved, it was sent to Gardiner for development into a print-suitable product.
Powell said that in the past using a purely water-based product on litho presses meant modifying the roller configuration to isolate the dampers, which meant that it was often impractical to add fragrances when faced with tight deadlines.
As a result, Gardiner was commissioned to modify the varnish, so that it could work with litho equipment without the need to modify the machines. Using low-odour raw materials, Gardiner created the varnish through a slow mixing process.
“People use ‘wow’ as a statement far too often,” said Gardiner managing director James Gardiner.
“But I believe this product could really change the minds of printers who have been reluctant to use fragrancing in the past.
"Together, our companies have devised a very clever system for applying the varnish in the standard printing run. It is brilliant to see two UK manufacturers working together to innovate.”
Gard30 has been tested at speeds up to 50,000iph and according to Powell the running speed was only limited by the capability of the press, meaning there is “no reason to believe this is the maximum speed possible for Gard30”.
Celessence’s 11-staff team is based in Rochester, Kent works with customers in the textiles, print and toy industries, with 90% of its sales derived from exports. Inks and coatings manufacturer Gardiner Colours runs a 15-strong team out of 2,000sqm premises in Normanton, West Yorkshire.
