Hand

The trade word for how a fabric or a print feels to the touch — soft, crisp, stiff, dry, slick. It is a subjective judgement rather than a measured figure, but it is the property customers react to first, so it drives buying decisions more than ounce weight does. Decorators use it twice: to describe the blank, and to describe the print, where "soft hand" means an ink film thin or absorbent enough that you cannot feel a plastic patch on the shirt. Discharge and water-based inks give the softest hand; a heavy plastisol deposit with an underbase gives the heaviest.