Today’s post is going to highlight a potential problem with fugitive glue that you should be aware of.
First off, fugitive glue are drops of glue that are placed on a self-mailer to keep it closed. So for example, if you’re mailing a double postcard, you could apply fugitive glue to keep the 2 postcard panels closed in the mail stream.
The alternative are wafer seals — the circular pieces of “tape” that get folded over the panels you want to close — but they are more expensive and more visible on the mail piece.
The potential problem with fugitive glue is this: depending on the design of your self-mailer, you might have to apply the drops of glue on a reply card that is hopefully returned back to you. If the recipient sends back the reply card without rubbing off the drops of glue, there’s the potential issue of the reply card sticking to other mail and never reaching it’s final destination.
This all said, we don’t think this is a huge issue to worry about because a reply card sticking to another piece of mail is pretty obvious and would be corrected by the USPS And furthermore, I assume most people would rub the glue off before sending back the reply card.
If your self-mailer design is forcing you to use fugitive glue on your reply card and you’re worried about the above, you have 2 options:
- Use wafer seals instead.
- Speak to your lettershop vendor because there are different types of fugitive glue you can use that vary in size and intensity.
We would love to hear about your experiences or comments on this topic. Please comment below if you’re interested.
5 comments ↓
The problem we are facing is after we run our products through our digital presses and the fuser oil gets applied, the fugitive glue will not adhere to the fuser oil. We have tried different fugitve glue adhesives different tack but they will not flow through our heads on our gluer. Can anyone help ?
Hi Warren, you probably have already tried this, but I would contact your glue supplier and your digital press supplier because there’s not too many things that will stick to fuser oil.
We have a fuser oil compatible product. Feel free to email me for a sample.
The biggest issue we’ve encountered as graphic designers, is tearing of paper surfaces… matte and gloss coated, with and without varnish. I was told that aqueous coating doesn’t help either due to interaction with the fugitive glue solvent.
It’s very disconcerting to see a mail piece all mangled when opened. Any suggestions for an alternative, besides the wafer sticker?
Hello Sylvia, there are many variables that apply. Not only is there cold glue versus hot glue but there are different types and strengths of each kind. Then each paper, coating and varnish could react differently too. We typically use low strength glue to minimize fiber tear. For some reason if the piece would open too easily then we can just apply more glue. If your getting too much fiber tear, then either the wrong glue or too much glue was used. Hope this helps. If you want to chat further, you can email me at ryan@ballantine.com.
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