A new investigation reveals that thousands of baby hand and footprint keepsakes across the UK are gradually disappearing, leaving parents upset as precious mementoes they believed permanent quietly vanish.
The report follows a year-long experiment conducted by The Bespoke Foil Company, based in Wigan, which specialises in durable foil keepsakes. Founders Ashley and Ryan Eccleston were inspired to investigate after hearing multiple accounts from parents whose newborn prints had already begun to fade within months.
In the study, the team purchased a low-cost toner foiling print kit, a type commonly used by families to capture their baby’s first prints. They photographed the same print weekly over twelve months. After just twelve weeks, the once-sharp handprint began to blur, and by the year’s end, the image had almost entirely disappeared.
The findings are detailed in the report, Don’t Let Your Memories Fade Away, available on the company’s website. The results cast doubt on the longevity of cheaper inkless print kits that claim to be keepsakes but fail to endure.
Ashley Eccleston, Co-founder and Chief Memory Keeper at The Bespoke Foil Company, said: “When Ryan first showed me those prints that had been sitting on the shelf, I honestly felt sick. We’d left them there by accident after one of my baby events, and within just a few weeks, the details had started to blur. By three months, they were barely recognisable.
“As a mum myself, I kept thinking about all the families who’d trusted these standard inkless kits to preserve their most precious memories, not knowing they’d fade away. That moment made me question everything – why were we in this business if we couldn’t guarantee that these irreplaceable moments would last? It completely reinforced our commitment to Foil Fusion Technology and made me even more determined to educate parents about the difference between a temporary print and a permanent keepsake.”
The Bespoke Foil Company’s Foil Fusion technique, developed over five years, embeds metallic foil permanently into the card’s fibres rather than sitting on the surface like toner foiling. This prevents cracking, peeling, or fading, keeping each print as crisp and detailed as the day it was made.
The experiment has served as a wake-up call for the keepsake sector, highlighting that many parents are unaware that materials commonly used in baby keepsakes deteriorate quickly when exposed to light, heat, or air.
The company aims to use its findings to encourage greater honesty in how baby keepsakes are marketed and to help parents make informed choices when preserving their baby’s earliest moments.
