Keith Lofton thought Pro Towels’ (asi/79750) selection of “ghost ink” towels – which reveal a new design when the product gets wet – were going to debut as the hot new product of 2023, but then taper off, as trends can do.

But the “wow factor” of water-activated designs still hasn’t abated, more than a year after the Pittsburgh-based supplier launched ghost ink towels on its site, says Lofton, Pro Towels’ vice president of sales.

“I would say one out of every 10 orders that we’re doing has a ghost ink element to it, and that’s big for us,” Lofton says. “This has been a really nice little uptick and something that has continued to maintain a level of consistency that I don’t know we expected.”

“Ghost ink” designs, like the printed suns and paddles lining this pickleball-themed sport towel, allow for a unique surprise when the user gets the product wet.

Towels aren’t the only product that benefit from the element of surprise. Tiny Fish Printing has been using water-activated ink on apparel for years, says Antonio Esteves, the CEO of the Rochester-based screen-printing company, but it’s only become widely available to more suppliers relatively recently, with the development of “Phantom Clear” by pigment manufacturer Matsui International Co.

About 15 years ago, ViewSPORT, a fitness industry brand with a full range of men’s and women’s sweat-activated workout attire, approached Esteves and his team for help. When they appeared on Shark Tank to pitch their product, they’d relied on a convoluted printing process that was more complex than necessary and wanted Tiny Fish to help streamline it.

The shop figured out how to print the ink using a traditional screen-printing method, Esteves says, and started to use the product on apparel for clients, usually in the fitness and military markets. Tiny Fish printed T-shirts for Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, for example, which revealed the phrase “Beast Mode” when the wearer reached sufficient workout sweat intensity.

“Those did really well,” Esteves says. “The ones that always seemed to do the best involved athletics.”

The water-activated ink product market first gained steam in the fitness industry with activewear from ViewSPORT. Motivational designs are revealed when the wearer sweats.

He’s seen less popularity among his customer base in the last few years, but adds that might just be because Tiny Fish isn’t the only screen printer using the ink anymore.

When Pro Towels started using water-activated ink about five years ago, it was in that same fitness and athletic space, Lofton says – providing T-shirts for branded 5K’s, fun runs, tennis tournaments, splash events and the like.

One thing to consider, however, in the athletic market, Esteves says, is placement of designs on performance wear, since people sweat in different patterns, making it tricky to ensure that the sweat-activated design is revealed for every wearer.

Towels don’t have the same limitations, and when Lofton realized that potential for Pro Towels’ main product line, it only made sense to expand.

“Every single towel that you use – a cooling towel, a beach towel, a golf towel, a workout towel – it’s getting wet,” he says.

The product has gotten more distributors excited about self-promo, Lofton says. Just last week, he got a call from a distributor who handed out ghost ink beach towels at a client event in Orlando and already has multiple new customers interested in products with water-activated designs.

Since there aren’t any limitations on the type of design possible using the ink – just the size of the printable area – Lofton says he just encourages businesses to treat it as a “fun space” to give their branding and promotional products new life.