Mouth & Sleep Tape Contract Manufacturing
A leading contract manufacturer, JBC Technologies is an ISO 13485 Certified mouth tape manufacturer, with years of experience converting medical-grade hypoallergenic materials and skin-safe tapes into mouth products.
A Solventum Premier Converter, we combine process engineering expertise with a wide breadth of value-added capabilities that work towards simplifying your supply chain and boosting your go-to-market speed.ISO 13485 Certified Mouth Tape
Made in the USA
As a U.S-based die-cutter and contract manufacturer, JBC Technologies is your go-to partner for domestic mouth and sleep tape products. JBC leverages extensive die-cutting and flexible materials converting capabilities to provide high-precision conversion and scale-up capabilities for fast-growing mouth tape brands, taking you from initial prototype to high-volume retail production.
The Anatomy of a Mouth Tape
Carrier + Adhesive + Liner = Functional Mouth Tape
Mouth and sleep tapes may come in different shapes and sizes, but at their core, they must contain three main functional features: A carrier, an adhesive, and a release liner.
Here’s what makes up a functional mouth tape from JBC Technologies:
The Carrier The structural backbone
The Adhesive The skin-contact interface
The adhesive is what does the heavy lifting (or rather, sticking) in mouth tape designs. For mouth and sleep tapes, the adhesive selected must be biocompatible and skin-safe, ensuring atraumatic removal from sensitive facial skin, but have enough tack to remain adhered overnight through sweat, breath, and moisture. Mouth tapes typically use medical-grade acrylic or silicone adhesives.
Key Performance Metric – Skin Friendly Peel Adhesion: Critical for ensuring your mouth tape won’t irritate or damage the skin upon removal.
The Release Liner The delivery system
Release liners are temporary carriers that protect the adhesive before application. Liners are a key part of the end-user's experience, dictating how easily and by what means the mouth tape will be removed/applied. Liners may be kiss-cut and scored, creating a split-back liner for optimized user applications.
Key Performance Metric – Low to Medium Release Force: Critical for allowing the consumer to successfully peel the mouth tape off the liner.
For a deeper dive on what makes up medical-grade PSAs, check out this whitepaper, The Anatomy of a Medical Grade Pressure Sensitive Adhesive.
Designing Functional Mouth Tape
Design for Manufacturability and Assembly Considerations
Balancing aesthetics with functionality is a big part of successful mouth tape design. But while certain features like sharp 90-degree angles or highly stylized vent-holes may look great, it’s important to understand how they may affect the manufacturing process as early in the development process as possible.
Led by our team of process engineers, JBC employs valuable design for manufacturability and assembly (DFMA) principles to ensure your mouth tape design is manufacturable, functional, and scalable from the start, helping you prevent product redesigns and optimize material yield.
By beginning with the end product in mind, JBC can turn baseline ideas into manufacturable, scalable realities.
Learn More: Read our e-Book!
CAPABILITIES FOR CUSTOM MOUTH TAPE MANUFACTURING
JBC has a seasoned process engineering team that understands design for manufacturability and assembly (DFMA) principles, years of experience converting skin-safe and medical-grade tapes, and an extensive array of die-cutting machinery and capabilities.
While our customers own their product design, we own the manufacturability. Our goal is to deliver the best product at the best value, with part presentations and packaging optimized for user experience and performance.
JBC Technologies' mouth tape manufacturing toolkit features the following:
Engineering Innovation
From early engagement and product consulting in the design stage, to custom-designed automated assembly solutions, to value added, value engineering projects that improve products and processes post launch, JBC provides custom-engineered solutions to your problems. We offer the best process design experience in the industry and serve as a technical resource that brings new ideas to the table.
Rapid Prototyping
Powered by our digital cutting capabilities, JBC's rapid prototyping services are an excellent resource for design engineers looking to quickly and cost-effectively test different materials or validate proof of concept for die-cut components.
Our digital cutting machines can quickly produce parts that would normally be die cut, taking them from CAD drawing to finished part in seconds with no tooling required. In higher-risk industries like the aerospace, medical, and consumer wellness space, this is an important step for validating the fit, form, and function of mission-critical components.
High-Volume Rotary Die-Cutting
JBC's fleet of multi-spindle rotary die-cutting machines is a core part of our commitment to manufacturing excellence, allowing us to fabricate thousands of dimensionally identical multi-layered components repeatably at high-speeds.
With machines ranging from 5-18 stations and a variety of inline capabilities like laminating, printing, ultrasonic welding, island placement, and more, our rotary die-cutting capabilities are critical to our "one-pass-approach" to manufacturing, helping us get more done in a single machine pass.
Complex Multi-Layer Laminating Services
JBC Technologies offers a full range of laminating services, including hot lamination, cold pressure lamination — both inline, and wide web. This gives our process engineers the flexibility to choose the right process for material, application, production volume, and value.
From bonding a pressure-sensitive adhesive to a foam gasket to marrying two complementary materials into one multifunctional component, we help you simplify your supply chain, reduce SKUs, and streamline your assembly process.
Custom Printing
JBC Technologies offers full-color in-line digital printing services for custom-printed flexible parts and components - serving medical device manufacturers, consumer wellness brands, and industrial OEMs.
Featuring full-CMYK printing, 600 or 1200 dpi resolution, and variable data printing, our printing capabilities allow to us apply branding, custom patterns, printed instructions, and more directly onto the die-cut component itself, helping streamline the entire converting workflow.
ISO 13485 Certified Cleanroom Die-Cutting
JBC is home to multiple ISO 8 / Class 100,000 Certified cleanroom manufacturing environments, each featuring high-volume rotary die-cutting and flexible materials converting equipment.
Our clean rooms have been carefully designed to meet the strict standards and quality requirements of the highly specialized industries that require that their parts be made in a low air particulate, temperature- and humidity-controlled, and sanitary environment, like the medical, consumer wellness, aerospace, and electronics industries.
Ask an Engineer: Answers to Commonly Asked Mouth Tape Questions
Mouth tapes are typically used in two main ways: during sleep and during exercise.
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For sleep: Mouth tapes for sleep (also referred to as sleep tapes) can be used to help reduce snoring, dry mouth, and promote nasal breathing, which can lead to deeper, more restful sleep.
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For exercise: Mouth tapes may be worn during exercise to help train the respiratory system to promote nasal breathing. Nasal breathing during low to moderate exercise can help the body be more efficient at processing carbon dioxide while also filtering and humidifying air better than mouth breathing.
Selecting the best mouth tape adhesive for sensitive facial skin typically depends on two main factors: your application and your budget.
Application-wise, you want an adhesive that’s gentle enough not to irritate sensitive facial skin. There are both silicone and acrylic-based adhesive tapes that work well for this kind of sensitive skin, like 3M Medical Tape 2480 (silicone) or Avery Dennison MED 5739 (acrylic).
While acrylic and silicone adhesives can be used interchangeably based on application, budgetary considerations can help you nail down your options further.
While silicone adhesives are known for their gentler adhesion and lower shear/tack, they typically cost more than the average acrylic adhesive tape. Acrylic adhesives are usually a more budget-friendly option for facial tape applications like mouth tape at the cost of slightly less repositionability and higher tack.
As with everything, there is no one-size-fits-all material. Discuss the needs of your mouth tape with your converting partner to make sure you select the right material for your specific needs!
A mouth tape's ability to be repositioned relies entirely on the material that has been selected for the job. If you want your mouth tape to be highly repositionable, go with a silicone adhesive like Solventum (3M) 2480. Silicone tapes can be repositioned multiple times without affecting their adhesion ability.
On the other hand, acrylic adhesives create a near-instant bond upon application, flowing into the small ridges of the skin. When peeled off, layers of skin and hair may come with it, affecting its adhesion ability.
If repositionability is an important user experience factor for your mouth tape product, talk with your converter about utilizing a silicone adhesive.
Ensuring that mouth tape stays on through humidity and sweat requires the right balance of breathability, water resistance, and part geometry.
- Breathability – If a material is not breathable, condensation from the user's breath may pool under the adhesive, causing the mouth tape to slide off. Certain high-moisture vapor transmission rate (MTVR) carriers, like nonwovens and PU films, act as a one-way barrier, allowing moisture to escape while preventing moisture ingress.
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Water resistance (wet-tack and shear strength) – For high-sweat/high-moisture applications like mouth tapes for exercise, medical-grade acrylics like Avery Dennison MED 5022 offer high shear strength, meaning they can remain adhered even on wet skin surfaces.
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Part Design/Geometry – Certain design features, like rounded corners, can help prevent premature delamination by eliminating “stress concentrators”. Sharp 90-degree corners are the first to lift when sweat breaks down the adhesive bond.
When combined, all of these factors help your mouth tape stay on in the face of sweat, moisture, and humidity.
Right here! All of JBC Technologies' facilities are located within the United States. Our domestic manufacturing capabilities help mouth tape and consumer wellness OEMs, and startups avoid long overseas supply chains, tariffs, and global instability, and benefit from a responsive domestic supply chain and improved go-to-market speeds!
Whether or not a mouth tape, or any health/wellness product, is considered a “medical device” by the FDA depends on the intended use of the device.
According to the FDA, whether a component is a “medical device” or not depends on the claims made in the product's packaging or marketing:
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General Wellness Device (Mouth Tape): These products are marketed towards “lifestyle” improvements, and typically make claims that do not treat, mitigate, or diagnose a specific illness or condition. Rather, they make general claims like “improves sleep” or “promotes nasal breathing”. These components typically do not require FDA registration.
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Medical Devices: These products are marketed specifically to treat, diagnose, or mitigate a specific illness or condition. The marketing of these devices would include claims like “Cures Sleep Apnea” or “Relieves Respiratory Distress”. These components may require FDA registration and cleanroom manufacturing.
Your Mouth Tape Manufacturing Partner: From Prototype to Production
Looking to start your next custom mouth tape or sleep tape project? JBC Technologies provides full-product lifecycle support for mouth tapes, including material selection, rapid prototyping, design for manufacturability assistance, and high-volume manufacturing support.
Discuss your mouth tape project with a die-cutting expert today!