Food Sealers

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Likeablelady started a thread about impulse sealers which was very interesting and informative. Informative since I had no idea what an impulse sealer was. Thanks for the lesson! So, you use an impulse sealer to seal the bag then a heating gun to shrink the wrapping. Why don't you use a food sealer that sucks the air out and seals? I actually have one of those collecting dust in a cupboard in the kitchen. It never occurred to me to use it for soap. But now I'm thinking maybe I can. Or not. What do you experts say?
 
I would say no. The cost alone would be prohibitive I think. Those bags aren't cheap. I have a food sealer and love it for food and other items. Of course I haven't done the math either for them on soap or other products. Plus, you can't get the seal close enough with the food sealer it leaves a pretty good edge.
 
You could use a vacuum sealer in theory, but I'm not sure how well it would work in real life. I have one and use it a lot for food storage, but I don't use it for my soap or other products.

A home type vacuum sealer that most of us have needs a bag that has some kind of texturing inside so the air has a pathway out of the bag during the vacuuming step. The texture tends to make the bag translucent; shrink wrap is transparent. To get be able to use clear bags, you'd have to go to a commercial vac sealer and that is a lot more expensive than a home vac sealer.

A vac bag is usually made from heavier duty plastic than a shrink bag to guard against pinholes and imperfections in the plastic. If you use a light duty bag for vacuum packaging, it often fails to hold a vacuum. You end up with a heat sealed bag, sure, but it fits loosely around the item, not vacuumed down tight.

Also, a vac sealer won't shrink the bag into a wrapping that fits the item like a glove -- the plastic just compresses down flat however that happens. You can guide it a little so it flattens smoothly, but it's not going to be a form fitting cover.
 
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