White Plastic BOPP is the material for sauce bottles. Drips of sauce, vinegar, and oil, and the condensation every time a bottle comes out of the fridge, wipe off BOPP; on paper they soak in, stain, and wrinkle. Size the label to the straight part of the bottle, and label bottles only once they're cool, clean, and dry.

Sizing to the bottle

Woozy bottles and most round sauce bottles have a straight band between the shoulder and the base. That band is where the label goes, and it's smaller than it looks.

Height: measure the straight section with a ruler, and leave a margin at the top and bottom where the glass starts to curve.
Width: for a label that wraps around, measure around the bottle with a strip of paper. For a front label, decide how much of that you want to cover.
Taper: hold a straightedge against the side. If it doesn't touch from top to bottom, the bottle tapers, and a straight rectangle will wrinkle along one edge. Keep the label within the straight part, or ask us about a shaped label before you order.
Label size: once you've worked it out, send it with your artwork. If your bottle supplier has a drawing of the label area, often called a dieline, send that too.

Size charts for "a 5 oz woozy" are only a starting point, because bottles from different makers differ. Measure your own. More in putting a sticker on a curved surface.

Paper or BOPP

Food label materials covers this in depth. For sauce, the short version is that oil is what ruins paper: it wicks in from a single drip and stains from beneath. Paper roll labels aren't laminated, so nothing keeps the oil out. White Satin Paper suits gift boxes and dry packaging; on the bottle, choose BOPP.

Gloss lifts color. Matte cuts glare, and it's the finish to choose if you write batch numbers by hand: it takes pen or Sharpie, while writing on a gloss roll label scratches off with a fingernail. Vinyl sheet labels follow the sticker rule: gloss takes a Sharpie, and matte takes ballpoint too.

Bottling, then labeling

Hot-filled bottles: let them cool to room temperature first. Labels bond best to glass at room temperature, not hot.
Every bottle: wipe it. A smear of sauce or oil is exactly where the label will lift. Use isopropyl alcohol on a cloth, then let it dry.
Bottles from the fridge: let them warm up and dry first. A cold bottle sweats, and a label can't bond through a film of water.
Newly labeled bottles: give them a day. Adhesive builds strength over the first day or two. Once it has bonded, the fridge door is exactly the kind of life BOPP is made for.

Clear labels on sauce

Our roll labels are white BOPP or paper. For a clear, no-label look on glass, use Clear Sheet Labels, which are applied by hand. On sauce, the white ink decision matters more than usual: behind a clear label sits a dark red or brown sauce, and colors printed without white behind them almost vanish against it. Put white behind your text and logo. See do clear stickers need white ink.

Room for everything else

Ingredients, net contents, your business details: check the rules for your product and where you sell it, then make room. Common layouts:

A front label for the brand and a back label for the information.
A wrap that carries both, with the information on the back half.
A neck label for heat level or flavor. The neck tapers, so keep it narrow and short.

Each separate label is its own design with its own minimum. Keep text at 6 pt or larger, and 8 pt for thin (light or script) fonts. Dates, ingredients, and writing on food labels covers fitting it all in, and batch dates.

Sheet labels or roll labels

Bottling a few dozen at a time? Vinyl sheet labels start at 25 of a design and ship 3 to 5 business days after you approve the proof. Bottling hundreds, or using a bottle labeler? Custom Roll Labels start at 100 of each design and ship 5 to 7 business days after approval. For a machine, see hand-applied or machine-applied labels.