Air Dry Clay Brand Review

As I said in my previous article, I will share with you my experience in trying different brands of air dry clay. I think most people prefer to use the better Japanese clay and not the brand I review here. They are more expensive yet better quality. This is just for people who is curious about this brands. I think there is always something to share from experiences.

1) The first time I buy air dry clay is Daiso Clay. This clay cost only SGD$2 (I reside in Singapore), it is very cheap so I think it won't hurt to try one.

Daiso air dry clay is super soft and light, however has a very cracky texture. Daiso clay is more suitable to make palm sized cute dolls (like pictured in the package) and palm sized mini food. I do not recommend Daiso clay for 1:12 scale project since it is hard to handle the cracks. However this clay is suitable to make biscuits, cream puffs, and those stuffs that has a typical biscuits cracks.


2) The next brand I tried was DAS air dry clay. I bought this from Art Friend (Singapore) for +/- SGD$ 4. DAS clay is considered heavy compared to Daiso and it has a greyish color (which I don't like because I want a white color so it is easy to mix color into).

DAS Clay is hard to knead and also harder to mix with acrylic paint to create colors.
This clay type is more suitable to be used for making palm sized creation as well, and not really suitable for 1:12 scale creations. It is better to sculpt the clay first after that proceed to paint the sculpted clay (not to mix color with the clay). Personally, I would not recommend buy this brand.

3) The other brand I've tried is Darwi extra light clay. This is the most suitable among all 3 to create 1:12 scale miniature food. However, still if you want to achieve great result, use Japanese premium brand clay (like Grace/Hearty clay). This clay cost the most expensive among the 3 brands (SGD$7). I still find the clay to be cracky even though not as cracky as Daiso. The texture is soft and easy to knead, and it feels like a cake dough.

I also have tried Grace Clay while I took course in miniature food making with miniaturepatisseriechef.blogspot.com. 
 This clay is no doubt the best clay of the three I've tried above because the price is also well above the above 3 clay.

In summary, I do find that the price is a gauge for quality of the clay. So you would think of it as a trade off between the price and quality. According to my experiences, I would recommend to start directly with the more expensive ones because it will reflect on your result when you use a good quality clay.