I’m a beginner air dry clay artist who likes to try new air dry clay brands and tools to make trinket trays and other home decor items.
During my trinket tray project series, I made an avocado trinket tray, strawberry trinket tray, papaya trinket tray, orange trinket tray, and banana trinket tray using Mont Marte air dry clay. 🥑🍓🍍
Yes, all the trinket trays are inspired by fruits. Lol.
But in my latest pineapple trinket tray project, I had to go with an unbranded air dry clay from the local market due to the unavailability of Mont Marte air dry clay. I didn’t think about it much because I loved to try that as well because it’s cheaper.
Sad to say, it was completely a disaster from the very beginning, and I gave up making the pineapple trinket tray I had in my mind.
Let me tell you what went wrong with this unbranded air dry clay compared to Mont Marte clay.
Mont Marte vs. unbranded air dry clay
Mont Marte is one of the most popular and reputable air dry clay products with lots of positive reviews on Google.
It is easy to knead and soft enough to get the shape you want.
Due to the popularity of Mont Marte air dry clay, it is not always readily available in stock and is more expensive than the rest of the air dry clay products.
The unbranded air dry clay I bought was $2 cheaper than the Mont Marte air dry clay. Sadly, I fell for the trap.
It didn’t have a proper label. Only “Air hardening modeling clay” was printed on it. No brand name, no manufacturing country. Yes, it looked suspicious, but I didn’t care because it was just an air dry clay.
But it ended up wasting hours of my time and ruined my project completely. I was utterly foolish.
If you’re a beginner like me who likes to try new things, I recommend that you try new things only from reputed well known brands. They are there for a reason.
Read the feedback from the customers if you’re purchasing online or ask expert opinions.
If your air dry clay is not good, it’ll punish you till the end of your project. So choose wisely because beginners tend to give up on their entire air dry clay artist dream because of one bad purchase.
Workability and texture (the stickiness factor)
It is important that your air-dry clay is easy to work with and has a smooth texture. If it becomes too messy or if kneading is difficult, the clay won’t become soft enough, which is essential for proper shaping.
Mont Marte’s smooth consistency
You can knead Mont Marte air dry clay with a little bit of water after conditioning. The clay quickly becomes soft.
Yes, it is a bit messy at first, but upon kneading it’ll become how you want it to be. The texture is smooth and fun to work with.
Unbranded clay’s moisture problem
The unbranded air dry clay I used when making the pineapple trinket tray was totally a headache. I applied a little bit of water by tapping on the clay as I always do to condition the clay.
Then knead the clay well like dough. When kneading, I realized it didn’t become soft as Mont Marte air dry clay. Instead it started forming cracks due to high water evaporation while kneading and crumbled.
Soft clay is a must for shaping. Therefore, I continued adding more and more water to make it soft.
In the end, I was able to get a little bit of softness from this unbranded clay piece and placed it on the mat and started rolling. That’s when it became worse.
Since I had used a lot of water for kneading the clay, it started to stick to the mat. When I tried to flip, turn and rotate the clay slab while rolling, which is a popular method to stop air dry clay from sticking to the surface, it was stuck.
Due to high moisture content, vacuum-like areas were created between the clay slab and the mat, and the clay slab tore apart when I tried to lift up the clay. ☹️
Basically, the unbranded clay turned into a sticky mess that glued itself to your cutting mat.
I used a PVC mat, which is considered one of the best for air dry clay. Yes, the problem was the clay I used.
Cutting clean edges and structural integrity
Clean edges are essential for getting a nice and smooth finish. Mostly air dry clay does not give sharp cuts even with a sharp knife, but those little imperfections can be easily fixed by gliding your finger over the edges of the clay slab.
Surface cracking while rolling
When I was rolling the unbranded air dry clay slab, micro cracks started to form immediately on the surface and around the edges.
When you try to lift the clay up after rolling it’ll start to tear apart from those micro cracks around the edges. The smoothing is also not possible because of the high quantity of cracks and they form rapidly.
This did not happen with Mont Marte. It does not dry that quickly and does not crumble. The little imperfections can be easily fixed by smoothing.
Unbranded clay tore
Due to the poor texture of the unbranded clay I used, it caused my craft knife to drag and ruin the edges, rather than making a sharp cut.
When cutting around the edges, big chunks of clay came out, damaging the clay slab. You cannot fix those big damages just by gliding your finger over the clay slab. Such a disaster!
Final thoughts
Never ever go for cheap, unreputable, unbranded air dry clay even though you like to experiment with new things. I learnt the lesson the hard way. 🛑
I could not make my pineapple trinket tray even though I did everything correctly because of the bad texture and poor workability of the air dry clay.
On the other hand Mont Marte is so good. You can shape it as you want with only a little bit of water and it does not stick to the mat if you follow the correct rolling techniques.
I found that Mont Marte (What I used), DAS, Padico La Doll Premier, Crayola, Jovi and Creative Paperclay are great for smooth texture, durability, and a ceramic-like finish.
So try them instead of unbranded dogsh*t. Cheers! 🤟🏾🎨
