16 - The first test

Test items:

White cotton clothes I tested

I wanted to test 4 recipes I cooked in the past weeks and that looked very promising and bio bag worthy:

Not Maria Follert, but a Clara Davis recipe! I was confused.

• Clara Davis Gelatine Bio bag

  • 480 ml water

  • 97 gr gelatine

  • 26 gr glycerine

The sheet

The washing bag packed it the bio plastic

• Agar flexible bio foil 20

  • 5 gr Agar Agar

  • 20 gr glycerine

  • 250 ml water

Sheet + sock

Sock packed in Bio foil

• Agar flexible bio foil 18

  • 5 gr Agar Agar

  • 18 gr glycerine

  • 200 ml water

Sock packed in Agar bioplastic - 2

Close - up

• Agar bioplastic - 2

  • 4 gr Agar Agar

  • 10 gr glycerine

  • 200 ml water

Overview of the package:

Overview, what's in the package?

After 3 days I got my package back:

Package returned in a good state

Results of the materials:

All the recipes came in as the exact state as they were send out. No stains on the clothing pieces, no extra stickyness, no meltings, nothing. Each of them survived the joruney pefectly!

So now it's decision day. What do I want my plastic bags to be? Stong, flexible, not sticky, little sticky? Which recipe will be more close to the final recipe?

• Clara Davis Gelatine Bio bag

Review Gelatine recipe Clara Davis

This material really feels like plastic. But to be honest it's way to strong and unflexible to become a foil-ish bio plastic clothing packaging bag. The material is great for a normal plastic bag! Big advantage: It's the only one which is not sticky!! Just real dry material.

• Agar flexible bio foil 20

The recipe worked great on this one. You would expect that with the high amount of glycerine it would be really sticky, but it’s not the most sticky of them all! Agar bio foil - 2 is more sticky. This one has all the benefits from agar bio foil - 2, but is less sticky and feels more like a strong foil.

• Agar flexible bio foil 18

Agar 18 recipe review

This recipe worked out great aswel! It’s strong, not fragile and doesn’t seem to be really sticky. It’s a sticky material, but it can work out. The material feels a bit bubbly, almost like real plastic foil. Almost.

• Agar bioplastic - 2

This material looks great! It’s see through and not very yellowish. It’s also strong and flexible. Although it feels like a sticky balloon. So it’s a great start, but not the material I’m looking for.

Conclusion

I know I haven’t tested all the recipes yet, but it’s a good start. In the beginning of this project I was doubting between Gelatine and Agar Agar recipes. I prefer not to use Gelatine, because it is not vegetarian or vegan friendly.

I really have proven with this test that Agar is a go and gelatine is a no-go and not just because of the ingredients, but because of my end product goals. Agar recipes turned out to be more flexible and very close to plastic foil. I was afraid that Agar might melted or damaged the clothing along the way but that was not the case! For my experience and the proof I have: Agar can survive being posted to different locations and it can survive being stuck and shield in a paper bag for a couple of days without material changes.

The recipe that I found most promising was the Flexible Bio foil 20 (5 gr agar, 20 gr glycerine, 250 ml water). It’s a nice recipe and the material can stay in shape for a long time. It’s is less sticky than other recipes, feels comfortable and looks like plastic foil..

Further documentation of this week:

16 - Reframing and expo prep