FINISHES
Soft touch boxes
Soft touch is a low-gloss finish with a suede-like surface, available two ways on a folding carton. Soft touch lamination bonds a textured film to the board. Soft touch coating applies a similar effect as a fluid. The film feels deeper and lasts longer, the coating costs less and glues more easily.
Two routes
A film or a fluid
The film is bonded to the sheet. The coating is laid on it. Both land on suede.
The point
Touch, not sheen
It is the one finish on this site specified for how a pack feels in the hand.
Watch for
Marking on dark solids
A nap holds a fingerprint. The surface is checked on a real board.
Best at
Whole cartons
A flood over the pack, with gloss brought back on top where a mark needs it.
The nap, and what sits on it
The finish is a texture rather than a color, which is why a photograph of it is a photograph of a matte panel. Drawn in cross-section the difference is the whole of the third frame.
A cross-section showing how a soft touch carton is built, in 4 steps.
- Printed board. A printed sheet, reaching lamination dry. Soft touch is a film, so it goes on across the whole sheet in its own pass.
- The film goes on. Bonded under heat and pressure like any laminate. What is different is the surface it presents afterwards, which is a fine texture rather than a sealed plane.
- What a fingertip meets. The nap is in the film, so it is the same the whole way across the panel. It also holds a mark, which is why a fingerprint on a dark soft touch solid stays visible.
- Gloss over the nap. The strongest contrast a folding carton can carry, because the eye reads the sheen difference and the hand reads the texture difference at the same time.
01Printed board
Printed sheet, cured dry
Cross-section, magnified. Not to scaleHover a layer to name it
01/04Step through it
Soft touch film and soft touch coating specification
Two processes sold under one name, compared side by side. Same shape as the eight finishes on this site.
The two surfaces, and how they go on
| Field | Soft touch film | Soft touch coating |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Full sheet only. A film cannot be applied to a spot area. | Full sheet, applied as a flood. |
How it behaves in use
| Field | Soft touch film | Soft touch coating |
|---|---|---|
| Depth of feel | Deeper. The nap is in the film, so it is the same the whole way across the panel. | Lighter. A smaller version of the same effect. |
| Scuff and marking | Marks on dark solids, and a mark in the nap is more visible than one on a flat matte. | Marks on dark solids, on the same terms. |
What goes over it, and what it costs
| Field | Soft touch film | Soft touch coating |
|---|---|---|
| Emboss under it | Yes. The relief is pressed after the film goes on and the nap carries over the shoulder. | Yes. |
| Cost direction | Higher, and the gap against matte film narrows as the run grows. | Lower than the film. |
| Also called | Soft touch laminate, soft touch matte | Soft touch varnish, soft touch aqueous coating |
A brief that says soft touch and a quote that assumes the coating produce a carton softer than matte and less soft than the sample the brand approved.
Say which one you mean, and send the file
Send the artwork and the brief together. We will confirm which of the two the design needs, and check anything sitting over it against the surface it has to bond to.
Soft touch vs matte lamination
Both are flat, both are low glare and both mark on dark solids. The difference is in the feel.
| Compared on | Soft touch | Matte lamination |
|---|---|---|
| Feel | Suede. A fine nap that slows the fingertip and makes the pack feel heavier than it weighs | Smooth and dry. Sealed film with the shine taken out of it |
| Appearance | Flat, and slightly deeper than matte. Dark grounds read fuller | Flat. No specular highlight from any angle |
| Marking | Marks on dark solids, and the mark sits in the nap so it is more visible | Marks on dark solids, and wipes back further |
| Durability | Comparable through transit, and it shows handling sooner on the shelf | Hides handling marks better |
| Spot UV contrast | The strongest available. Gloss against a nap differs in sheen and in texture | Strong, and the standard pairing for most cartons |
| Cost direction | Higher, and the gap narrows with run size | Lower |
| Typical categories | Prestige beauty, fragrance, spirits, anything where the pack is picked up before it is bought | Skincare, supplements, spirits, most of the matte shelf |
Want the flat ground without the nap? That is a matte film, and it is the cheaper specification. Want gloss on part of it? Both films take it, and soft touch takes it best.
How soft touch runs here
The film goes on across the whole sheet
The printed sheet reaches lamination dry, because the press cures with UV and IR at the delivery, and the film is bonded under heat and pressure across the full sheet. There is no spot version. A soft touch area on part of a panel is a coating job.
Foil, spot UV and emboss over the film
The nap is the surface the next operation meets. Foil needs a pretreatment to bond over it. Spot UV does not. An emboss is run after the film so the relief carries the nap over its shoulder instead of pressing a bare edge through it. All three are sequenced in prepress from the file.
Soft touch coating is a separate operation
A fluid laid across the sheet rather than a material bonded to it. Lighter effect, lower cost, easier to glue. A job that says soft touch needs to say which one.
Soft touch panels in dark and light
A soft touch panel in a dark colorway and the same panel in a light one, with a spot UV element on one of them. The marking shows on the swatch. Ask for the coating swatch alongside to compare the two versions of this finish.
Cost logic
Film cost sits above matte lamination, and the gap narrows as the run grows.
The coating is cheaper and gives a lighter effect. Where the pack is picked up before it is bought, specify the film.
What it costs against a US supplier
Landed cost runs 20 to 30 percent below a comparable US supplier quote. That is one price: board, printing, finishing, tooling, import duty, shipping and delivery to your door, with nothing added later.
Get a quoteWhen to use soft touch
Use it when
The pack is picked up before it is bought.
Soft touch is the one finish on this site specified for feel. On a shelf where nothing is opened, it changes how expensive the pack feels.
Spot UV is part of the design.
Gloss against a nap is the strongest contrast a carton can carry. The eye reads the sheen and the hand reads the texture. See high gloss over the same panel.
The ground is dark and should stay deep.
Matte film mutes a dark solid. Soft touch mutes it less, so a navy or black panel keeps more of the depth it had on the printed sheet, and it takes raised detail under the film without flattening it.
Do not use it when
The carton is a dark solid handled by many people.
Fingerprints are visible and they stay. On a counter display or a sampled product, the pack collects marks before the shopper sees it.
Recyclability is a stated requirement.
It is a film like any other laminate, so the film has to be separated from the fiber. A matte aqueous coating keeps the stream simple and gives up the nap.
The budget is tight and the run is short.
The gap against matte film is widest at low volumes. The coating is the better fit there.
Where soft touch belongs, by category and structure
Soft touch pays for itself where the pack is handled before it is bought. Elsewhere it costs more than matte for a similar look.
| Category | Structure it usually sits on | What it is doing there |
|---|---|---|
| Skincare | Straight tuck end, and the sleeve that goes over it | Making a small carton feel like a heavier object than it is |
| Prestige beauty | Tray and sleeve, hinge lid | Carrying a blind emboss, usually with a foil wordmark beside it |
| Fragrance | Tray and sleeve | The whole outer surface, because the box is opened slowly and deliberately |
| Spirits | Tray and sleeve, hinge lid | A dark ground that holds its depth, with the only bright element in foil |
| Supplements, upper tier | Straight tuck end | Separating a subscription pack from the same product in a matte laminated carton |
Questions about soft touch
A film with a fine textured surface bonded across the whole printed sheet after printing. The texture is what a fingertip reads as suede, and it changes the perceived weight of the carton in the hand as much as it changes how the panel looks. It is applied full sheet. There is no spot laminate. A separate soft touch coating exists, is applied as a fluid, feels lighter and costs less.
No, and the difference is not visible. Both are flat films with no specular highlight, so a photograph of one is a photograph of the other. Soft touch has a nap that slows the fingertip, mutes a dark ground slightly less than matte does, and costs more. Matte is the right specification wherever the pack is looked at rather than handled, which is most cartons; soft touch is the right one where the pack is picked up before it is bought.
It marks more than it scratches. Through transit it holds up much as a matte film does. On the shelf, a fingerprint on a dark soft touch panel is visible and stays visible, because the mark sits in the nap rather than on a sealed surface where it could be wiped back. It is a trade-off against the feel, not a defect. Avoid it on a dark pack that many hands will touch.
Lamination bonds a textured film to the board. Coating lays a fluid across the sheet that dries to a similar surface. The film has more depth under the hand, wears longer and costs more; the coating is lighter to the touch, cheaper, and easier to glue at the seam. Both are applied full sheet after printing. They are two separate specifications. A brief that says only soft touch leaves the choice to whoever quotes it.
First, which soft touch you mean. The artwork cannot tell us. Then name anything going over the finish: foil needs a pretreatment over the film, spot UV does not, and an emboss is run after lamination. Dark solids are corrected in the build before plates, since soft touch mutes less than matte and more than gloss, so send the approved shade card to correct toward. And keep heavy solids clear of the creases where the layout allows, because a stressed edge is more visible in a nap than on a sealed film.
Yes. It is the pairing this finish is most often specified for. High gloss over a soft touch ground is the strongest contrast available on a folding carton, because the eye reads the sheen difference and the hand reads the texture difference at the same time. The gloss areas are supplied as their own layer in the artwork exactly as they would be over a matte film. Foil needs more care over soft touch than spot UV does.
Last reviewed
Soft touch swatches in two colorways
Swatches go out as a soft touch panel in dark and in light, with a spot UV element on one of them. Ask for the coating swatch alongside and the two versions of this finish arrive in the same envelope.
