Thursday, March 21, 2019

Non-plastic beeswax blend food wraps project

A few months ago I ordered my first set of waxed fabric food wraps from etee.com (etee stands for Everything Touches Everything Else). I had never tried wax wraps before. Once I had the family trained on how to use them (no, you don't throw them away, no, you don't use hot soapy water to wash them, no, you can't leave them in the bottom of the sink in a pool of sludge), we were sold. Except for one thing: Plastic wrap and plastic bags are transparent, and these aren't. Barry complains frequently about all the mysterious blobs wrapped up in canvas in the fridge and gets tired of opening them to see what's in there over and over again.

This morning I took half a day off work for a dental appointment which, due to miscommunication, was only an hour long instead of three (I thought I was getting a crown, but I have to go back another day for that), so I had some time on my hands. I had collected the supplies to try the wraps explained on the blog at Mountain Rose Herbs. I had plenty of beeswax already, and had previously ordered jojoba oil (actually it's a wax, but a liquid wax) and copal resin (from pine trees, basically dried sap). I collected pure cotton quilting fabrics with prints of fruits and veggies and cut them into roughly 12-inch squares with pinking shears. Then I got to work.



I melted the copal resin in a double boiler (and it took nearly an hour, so allow time for that), then added grated beeswax and jojoba oil in double the proportions directed as I figured since I was going to the effort I might as well do a bunch. The copal resin did not want to incorporate into the waxes, but with patient stirring, eventually it did. When all the waxes were finally melted and blended, I spread my fabric squares on baking sheets (I didn't have any parchment paper), and used a 3-inch foam brush to spread the liquid wax quickly over the fabric. I'd recommend a foam brush for you, also. Very easy and no bristles to come off!



I followed the directions to warm the squares in a medium hot oven and spread the liquid around until the squares were completely saturated, then cooled and washed them.

And here's the result. I probably used too much wax on each one as they are pretty stiff, but having worn out a couple of the etee wraps already, I would rather err on too much than not enough wax, as you lose a little bit every time you use and wash one of these. You can see some excess on the tomato wrap.



And here's the onion wrap with half an onion in it.




Now we'll know which fabric-wrapped blob in the fridge is part of an onion, which is a leftover half of a sweet pepper, which is a half lemon, and which is a tomato half to slice for a sandwich.

I'll be watching for fabric depicting other fruits and veggies in time to come.

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