Spent 8 months labeling harnesses with masking tape and a sharpie

Out at the hangar in Tulsa last Tuesday I finally watched one of the newer guys on the night shift pull a harness out of the rack and he just read the tag on it like it was nothing. I had been writing all my looms with sharpie on masking tape for the better part of a year because my old mentor said permanent labels made the wires stiff and hard to route. Turns out the solvent on those cheap tape labels would smear off after a few weeks in the heat, so I was basically guessing which bundle went where every time I had to pull something down. The kid showed me he uses these little cloth label sleeves you slip over the whole bundle, cost like 12 bucks for a pack of 50, and I felt like an idiot standing there holding a half faded piece of tape. Have any of you had a simple trick like that completely fly under your radar for way too long?