 Hi everyone! This is going to be a rare talking video on this channel because there are so many points to cover. I decided to test out six brands of air dry paper clay to see which ones work best for crafting. You can always watch this video here if you want to know more about different types of air dry clay. If you're watching this video then you're obviously a crafters, I just want to mention that I finally joined Crafty Amino. I've received so many requests from my subscribers and my official account is Macaron Slash Cute Lifehacks. Crafty Amino is a free community app designed just for crafter so you can spend hours sharing your work, taking parking poles and discussing ideas. The public cat section is really cool because you simply pick a topic you like and you can jump right in. If you're not part of it yet then be sure to click the link under this video to try it out. For getting back to my clay review I decided to test for the factors that I feel are most important when crafting. I deliberately did not include the price because that really depends on where you live. Paper clay is actually not that expensive so you can order almost any brand with online shipping for less than $15. I've included all the shopping links below. The most important factor for a clay is how well you can sculpt with it. This also includes how well you can texture the surface or how well you can create tiny details. As you'll see in this video there are some brands of clay which are so terrible that they're basically unusable. This means that many crafters might get upset that their pieces don't turn out well, simply because they're actually using the wrong clay and not because they're bad at crafting. So if you've never tried a really good paper clay then I strongly recommend that you order one of the highest ranked ones after watching this video. I've also included a criteria for how thinly you can spread a piece of clay also known as the flower petal test. This comes from a crafting scene that's very popular in Japan and Russia where you can make amazingly realistic looking flowers using clay. Here are two flowers that I made using these techniques. You need a very high quality clay in order to create flower petals so this is a good test to see how well the clay holds up. Smell is a commonly overlooked factor because there's no way you can test that online. So if also ranked and described all the clays here based on smell because that can have a significant impact on your crafting experience. So I'm going to begin with hearty clay. This is a popular clay from Japan made by Padeco. It has a very soft and velvety texture and you can sculpt it easily. The consistency is really fine and you see that it spreads out smoothly into a flower petal. The next clay is Crayola Model Magic which is the easiest brand to find in the USA. This one is a bit softer and has the tendency to spread out slightly after you sculpt something. It does flatten into a flower petal but you can see that the edges are a bit too soft and they're starting to curl back together. The third clay is Mermaid Puffy which I use a lot in my videos. This one feels drier than the other clays and doesn't have the silky consistency like hearty. The paper fibers are quite large so you can see that it breaks apart into a fluffy texture. Because of this the flower petal test also failed because the clay is too rough to spread out thinly. So Mermaid Puffy is best for larger projects, some examples of which I have here. The fourth clay is Claycraft Deco which you've probably never heard about before. It's used almost exclusively in the flower making community and that's how I came across it. Though for this reason claycraft is actually an amazing clay because it's designed for professional crafting. As you can see here it makes a perfect petal and it even picks up the skin texture of your hand which makes the final flower look even more realistic. The next one is Fimo Air Light. I'm going to say right off the bat that I'm extremely disappointed by German clays. Since I grew up in Austria these are the brands that I always use as a child and I was never happy with them. I get the feeling that German manufacturers aim all their products at children so they can get away with absolutely terrible quality. German clays are light years apart from Japanese clays which are designed for professional artists and crafters. This Fimo clay actually doesn't look too bad of the package but as soon as you start needing it you realize that it falls apart easily and doesn't hold its shape. It also tends to rip during the flower petal test and you can see that the edges look rough and ragged. Next comes this EFA PLAST clay which feels very crumbly and their chunks breaking off even when you're trying to take it out of the packaging. It's almost impossible to sculpt with because pieces keep coming off and needless to say I knew it would fail the flower petal test before I even tried it. For the next step I wanted to see how well you can color and texture each brand of clay. I decided to make two pink macaron shells using the same technique from my macaron cat video here. I used a tiny bit of red acrylic paint and some gloves to prevent staying in my fingers. So the paint mixed inside very smoothly with hearty, model magic and clay craft. It took a bit longer for mermaid coffee because the clay is slightly more dry. Fimo and EFA PLAST produce terrible results. For some reason the paint won't spread and you get streaky lines instead of an even color. And both clays kept crumbling apart so it was a real test of patience to keep on working with them. Now that I have the macaron shells I'm going to add some texture for the feet. This is another way to test the quality of a clay because a good clay should be able to form and keep tiny details like this. I begin by drawing a line near the base and then pulling it outwards. Then I take a sharp tool and use a circular motion and some water to create a rough texture on the clay. And lastly I push the bottom edge inwards to make it look as realistic as possible. So the hearty clay was a dream to work with. You can see how the texture goes on immediately and stays in place. Crayola model magic was also good but the clay is much softer so the details end up flattening out a bit. Where make puffy is great for macarons but you have to use some water to soften up the surface before texturing. Clay craft deco is almost identical to hearty and it's equally pleasant to work with. I started to struggle with the female clay because it cracks easily and doesn't pick up any detail. When you try to make circular motions the clay simply crumbles off instead of allowing itself to be textured. So I have to say that female is slightly better than if a plast which is an utterly tragic excuse for a clay. Not only doesn't not hold any color it's also impossible to work with and crumbles at the slightest touch. So after making these shells I left them to dry. Small pieces like this will harden overnight and should be completely dry after one or two days. I find that mermaid puffy dries a tiny bit quicker than the others which is not the reason I like using this for my videos. This means that I can usually film the next part of any tutorial a bit quicker. The big exception here was Crayola model magic which contains some extra ingredients so it takes much longer to dry. This can be useful if you are a beginner and you need more time to sculpt your pieces because the clay won't dry out even if you are working on it for several hours. However, if you are making this as a gift or if you are under any kind of time pressure then you have to plan your project out while in advance so the clay has time to dry. And the final observation is the color change after the clay is dry. A good paper clay should turn slightly darker when dry because the water evaporates and the paint pigments become more concentrated. This is the case with the first four clays. Strangely enough, female and if a plast actually turned lighter when dry which is quite unusual and leads me to suspect that both of these clays actually contain a lot more plaster than paper fibers. Plaster absorbs a lot of moisture and explains why it was so hard to work with both of these. The final surface also feels dry, cracked and chalky which is quite unpleasant compared to the smooth and velvety surface of the other four paper clays. So here's a summary of all the things I tested for. Crayola needs clays are definitely the best for overall DIY work. Crayola model magic is a good all-rounder but you need some patience because it takes a long time to dry. Fimo and Aphaplast AirDry clays are unfortunately very inferior products designed for children so I would definitely not recommend them for any serious crafters. And lastly I'm going to describe the smell of each clay. Hearty had literally no smell at all which I found very nice to work with. Crayola model magic is a great clay but it's really let down by a very unpleasant smell. It's hard to describe, it's very accurate, smoky and almost a bit like burning rubber. It actually makes you feel a bit sick after a while which is why I'm surprised that model magic is marketed so heavily at children. Mermaid Puffy also has a noticeable smell but it's not as unpleasant as model magic. It smells more like white glue or wallpaper paste. Claycraft deco has a very mild smell and is very tolerable and is not unpleasant to work with. Fimo air light smells a bit like wet newspapers so that's not bad at all. And lastly Aphaplast surprisingly has no smell but that's far too late to save it in this ranking. So here comes the final verdict on all clays. The last two places go to Aphaplast and Fimo air light. I was extremely disappointed by both of these and nothing has changed since I used them as a child. I would not recommend that anyone waste their money on these two brands because they don't do your skills justice and they'll actually make you feel like a much worse crafter than you really are. The fourth place goes to Crayola Model Magic. This is an easily available and affordable clay which is actually really quite good but it does have a strong smell that might bother some people. However, if you don't mind that, then model magic is great for all DIY projects and the smell does go away after it dries. Third place is Mermaid Puffy which surprised me slightly because I actually like this clay a lot but I did realize that this is drier than other clays so you have to use a lot of water and working. In Japan Mermaid Puffy is sold as a children's clay so that explains why the quality is not as good as the more professional paper clays. The second place goes to Claycraft Deco Clay which is almost perfect but this is a rare brand that's tricky to get hold of. However, you can order it over Amazon which I've linked below. The packaging is quite big so it's good value if you plan to make big pieces but it's not as effective if you want to make small things because any unused clay might dry up. And of course, the first place goes to Hearty Soft. This clay is more easily available, it has no smell and it's absolutely amazing to work with. After doing this test, I plan to start using Hearty Clay a lot more often in my future tutorials. So I hope you found this video useful which is kindly sponsored by Crafty Amino. I've linked the app under this video so please go check that out and you can also follow me there. The app is completely free and you can find tons of other amino communities based on different interests. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!