ALL ABOUT CLEANING
This article by @handxmade is free for personal use ONLY, any reproduction is prohibited.
If you’d like to show your appreciation for these articles through monetary means, you can send me a ko-fi! ☕️
This post is all about how to keep your workspace, hands, and polymer clay clean 😊 It's a pretty common questions I get so here's how I do it and the tools I use yippee!
BLUTACK
This blutack idea is honestly something I've never even imagined and thought to use. NO ONE mentions it EVER despite searching on Uncle Google tons of times, and this is all credited to @aiclay, when I got her Pocket Kitchen! (See my review of it here)
I've purchased tons of blutack (as you can see from above) and I never could find the right texture that was provided in @aiclay's Pocket Kitchen - until this!
There are some that are SO HARD and doesn't stick well, and apparently the pastel green ones are SO SOFT AND STICKY that it becomes difficult to work with - sticking to everything.
I'm utterly confused though, since they're all by the same company - why are they not all the same??? Weird.
I managed to find the one with the right texture which is this packaging, and I do hope the consistency will not change 😅 (Even wrote "correct" on the packaging man hahaha that's how bad the others were 🙃)
Each bunch of blutack you take out does last you a long time! To be honest this particular pack was bought maybe a year ago from now and I still have half stick left 😆 That's because they 're still very much usable even after the amount of cleaning I use with it, and how dirty it got HAHA.
It's gross, but as you can see, the one on the right has been used for an uber long time (and still usable) and the colour turned to a very dirty grey. You can actually see specks of dusts on it hahaha.
It's the BEST TOOL to use to clean off dust everywhere though, as it sticks to blutack so well :')
This is how I clean my hands with blutack, usually focusing on my fingers as those are the ones that touches clay the most. I also roll it on my palm like how I would sometimes roll bigger pieces of clay.
Just make sure the blutack touches places that your polymer clay might potentially get on!
You might be wondering why normal tissue paper or washing your hands doesn't work, and that's because tissue papers will transfer lint on your hands that will get on the clay, and you should never ever handle polymer clay with wet hands! Polymer clay has certain oils in it that make it work, and water + oil = big no no.
SO YES. BLUTACK. SAVIOUR.
Look how I knead a piece of white clay after blutack magic and the clay remains white! 😍 No dust, no lint, no weird tiny hairs (where do they come from???)
I also use blutack to clean my tools by poking and probing the blutack with them and they're good to go HOW CONVENIENT IS THAT
Other than dust, I also use blutack to clean off any little bits of craft stuff like glitters on my work surface. Imagine all those pesky glitters just sticking in your blutack and not on your hair/clothes/everywhere else!! 😍
I usually just knead the blutack after I clean and these tiny bits of stuff usually just goes inside the deep abyss that is in the blutack and they will never ever come out ever again 😀
Even bigger pieces works too! But they're more obvious and sometimes you can feel them in the blutack 😂 So what I'd so is to tear a small piece of blutack from my cleaning blutack pile, clean bigger pieces with it and then throw it away after.
It's very rare that I need to do this though, and if it's big enough usually I can just sweep it into a dustbin. But sometimes I'm lazy and you will be too so that's what I do hoho.
Blutack really is amazing, and if I don't have it, I will NOT even attempt to craft. It helps that they last so long so I can take my time to purchase new ones before they're out!
I also use Blutack to help with my photography sometimes, sticking my figurines/clay pieces upright etc. It's just so helpful and a problem solver. Go get yourself some "correct" blutack!! 😆
RUBBING ALCOHOL/ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL
Rubbing alcohol, or Isopropyl alcohol, is the same thing. I had no clue and when I was researching, took me awhile to realise they're the same... 😅
Anyway, Isopropyl alcohol is most commonly used to disinfect wounds or tools etc, and so because of that you can find it at most pharmacy. Other than doing what it's meant to do, it's also really good at cleaning the surface of RAW polymer clay!
I have cotton buds in two different sizes for this cleaning purpose - normal sized, smaller sized ones for smaller surfaces, and cotton pads for bigger surfaces!
Now you want to get cotton pads for facial purposes! Those has a certain layer at the top so that the fuzzy cotton doesn't get on your polymer clay - it's a really common problem and you really don't want to go through that experience 😐
The fuzzy parts should only be inside the cotton pad like so. See the difference between the two? 😊 Trust me, it will save you a lot of trouble!
The amount of Isopropyl alcohol on the pad is very important too. DO NOT be stingy in this area and put TOO LITTLE. When you start rubbing on your polymer clay, the lint will start to rub off on the clay!
BUT take note: you don't want to SOAK the whole cotton pad, and the Isopropyl alcohol starts oozing out at the lightest touch - the polymer clay DOES NOT absorb the alcohol, so overwhelming it with tons of Isopropyl alcohol will just make the clay get all weird..
You want the surface area of the Isopropyl alcohol on the pad to be MORE than the surface you're going to touch it with, and that should do! No more, no less.
Same goes for the cotton buds! Make sure the whole bud is filled with Isopropyl alcohol and not just the tip, but do not keep spamming it with Isopropyl alcohol when it already reaches the end of the bud 😊
Here's how it looks like cleaning off the very dirty surface with Isopropyl alcohol! Usually it's not so dirty la I made it more obvious so you can see the difference hahaha.
When it's for smaller surface area or there's less dirt, I usually will use cotton buds 😊
Be wary that if the dirt is EMBED in the clay and it can be seen, you need to take it out physically and smooth it out with your finger! Isopropyl alcohol can only clean the surface of the clay.
I think of it as removing a thin surface of the clay, and because of that, it can remove fingerprints too! 😉
Similarly, if you have any textures on the clay, Isopropyl alcohol WILL remove it. So it's recommended to clean it with Isopropyl alcohol BEFORE you texture the clay.
CHEAP NAIL POLISH REMOVER/ACETONE
This is another saviour I found and I call it the sh!tty nail polish remover 😂
Isopropyl alcohol can ONLY remove dirt on RAW polymer clay; this can do the same thing BUT on BAKED polymer clay!! 😱
I usually purchase this at CK department store around my neighbourhood, but there was a period of time it ran out and I was so devastated - it IS that good!!
So...I went online and I actually found a website to purchase them in Singapore and I bought A LOT HAHAHAHA.
It comes in pink and blue but it doesn't really matter cause it doesn't transfer to your clay hurhur. I always got blue colour so I got used to it 😊
@aiclay actually told me that she tried getting other nail polish remover but it doesn't work as good as this one, and I suspect it's because this one is just sh!ttier for your hands that's why 😅
Here's the ingredients in case you can't find the exact same one! ACETONE is the magic ingredient, so make sure your nail polish remover is the cheap ones that has tons of acetone!
You probably can just use pure acetone, BUT I believe by itself it's too strong, and the smell is probably quite unbearable. This one doesn't smell that bad, and airing my room after I work with it usually does the job! (Just smells like nail polish remover la basically)
Look at the magic here - it really removes thin layers off baked polymer clay very well, and at the top left there's actually a small concave indent and this "flattened" it by removing the surrounding area haha. So if there's any bumps that you couldn't smooth out when you're claying, this will help!
It can remove quite a bit of layers so be wary if you're using it on thin pieces!
You can also see how the cotton bud is filled up with the nail polish remover - not too little and not too much, just like Isopropyl alcohol 😊
BUT. This only works well on light coloured clay. Doing this on darker colours like black, dark purple etc will cause it to leave streaks of white on it 😱
So if you need to clean any fingerprints or dirt off dark coloured clay, I recommend using Isopropyl alcohol before you bake it instead!
If you HAVE to use it for baked polymer clay, try to do it in small tiny circle with the lightest touch - it worked for me sometimes, but most of the time.....not so much. (Especially when this piece is to the point of no return...)
I also use this nail polish remover to clean my work surface (matted acrylic board) as I realised that because I sanded it down, it actually became "porous" so to speak. Which means if I spilled paint or anything that has pigment, it gets stained 😱
Here's how it looks like when I just wipe a ridiculous big "accidental" drip of paint on my work surface with plain o' tissue paper!
You can use Isopropyl alcohol too, which works, but not too well - you can still see some stain on the acrylic board!
Look at how clean the acrylic board becomes 😍 as good as brand new, which is important if I'm going to film with it hehe.
And with this cleaning tip, this is why acrylic board is perfect for me as a work surface hoho.
DISINFECTING WIPES/KITCHEN WIPES
The last item for cleaning is this kitchen wipe! 😊 (Apologies for the tear on the container, my lovebird destroyed it at some point 😶)
I use this to clean pigments off my fingers, and although I don't think it's intended for hands and it's probably too harsh for hands.....it's the quickest way I've found to get rid of those pesky clay residue on my fingers!
Not even soap clean it off well 😅 This, however, does the job.
If you're worried about dry skin or something using stuff like this on your hand, make sure you use hand lotions after you finish claying ok!
It's not too expensive, and I think I bought mine at FairPrice. It lasted me a long time because I don't use it too often (and usually one session I'll use the same piece throughout 🙃)
I like how convenient it is to get out of the bottle though! Just pull it out and the opening will catch the next one so you won't take out more than two at once!
When you mix colours with your hands, pigment gets on your fingers. Especially colours like RED! OMG those are the worse aha. And when you have to work with white clay after....it just gets mixed into it and you get pink colour instead HAHA 😱
You can use blutack to stick bigger pieces of clay and clean your fingers again, BUT it wouldn't be as clean as using this kitchen wipe! Notice how there's still some red on the wipe 🙃 I usually just go for the towel immediately hurhur.
You can use normal wet tissues, but I love using this kitchen wipe as it does what it needs to do much QUICKER 😍
If you're going to use your hands to eat chicken wings or something after you clay, make sure you use this to get rid of all the clay AND THEN wash your hands with soap! The most guarantee way to know your hand is really clean and you won't be ingesting polymer clay 😂
Alright! That's all for the tips for how I clean everything - hands, work surface, tools and polymer clay! Hope this helps and let me know if I missed out on anything 😊