A: There could be a number of factors that can affect your rhinestones and how well they'll hold onto the clothing. Properly pressed rhinestones will outlast the garment.
These are our various recommendations for using hotfix rhinestones:
First, pre-press your new, never washed blank apparel. This is important because it removes any environmental moisture and if you pre-wash the clothing, the chemicals and additives in detergent, and especially any fabric softener/dryer sheet will coat the fibers of the fabric, interfering with the rhinestones ability to grip onto the fabric.
Next, get an infrared thermometer to test the heat coming off of your heated platen. We press ss06 and ss10 hotfix rhinestones at 325F for 15 seconds with medium firm pressure. We do recommend an actual heatpress rather than a home iron or Easypress. The Easypress will work, but you'll need to add quite a bit of pressure and the Easypress is notorious for being off on it's heat.
Let the stones cool a few seconds before removing that Acrylic hotfix tape, so the heat-activated adhesive has a moment to start to cool and re-harden.
When washing, stay away from all fabric softeners and laundry scent beads. As mentioned, those chemicals interfere with the adhesive.
If after following all of the above steps you are still having issues, feel free to reach out to us via email.
[email protected].
Best of luck!