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See why.Reusable Food Wraps
Food wraps coated with beeswax and other natural ingredients are marketed as environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic wrap. How well do they work?
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See Everything We TestedWhat You Need To Know
Using plastic wrap to keep foods fresh is convenient, but as a single-use product destined for the landfill, plastic wrap can be wasteful, and its tendency to get tangled and stick to itself can make it frustrating to use. Reusable food wraps—sheets of cotton or hemp dipped in a layer of beeswax or soy wax—are an increasingly available alternative. Manufacturers advertise that these wraps are as effective as traditional plastic wrap at keeping food fresh. They can be wrapped directly around food or used to seal bowls and other containers. To use them, you fold and overlap the material and press firmly to adhere the wrap. When you’re done, you can clean them with a bit of soap and water, store them, and reuse them. The wraps gradually lose their clinging ability over time and can then be cut into strips and composted or even used as simple fire starters. According to most manufacturers, they're good for about a year of regular use. We tested six sets, priced from about $3 to about $6 per wrap, against one another and our winning plastic wrap to see which would perform the best.
We evaluated the wraps’ versatility by using them to cover bowls of various materials and sizes. We checked their clinging ability by vigorously shaking bowls that we’d filled with grapes and sealed. We compared the wraps’ food storage effectiveness by using them to wrap and store loaves of bread and halved lemons, avocados, and onions, checking if they retained odors. We crushed blackberries onto them to see if they stained. Finally, we washed each wrap more than 10 times—by hand, since none were dishwasher-safe—to get a sense of its durability. We were looking for a wrap set that preserved food well, was easy to use and clean, and held up to consistent use over time.
Testing Cling
These wraps’ success depends on how well they can adhere—both to themselves and to containers. Each wrap’s components are very similar: fabric dipped in beeswax or soy wax, as well as jojoba oil, coconut oil, and/or tree resin for added stickiness and flexibility. Manufacturers were reticent to disclose their exact formulas, but we noticed some differences in texture and clinging ability that suggested that companies use different proportions of wax, oil, and tree resin. Two of the wraps were extremely sticky and malleable. They folded and stuck well to themselves and the bowls we tried them on, creating seals that held fast during the grape test. But there was a downside to those supersticky wraps. While all left some oily residue on our hands and the bowls’ rims, the especially sticky wraps left gunky, waxy residue everywhere. We were able to easily scrub awa...
Everything We Tested
Recommended
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
These wraps provided a happy medium between a strong seal that kept food fresh and a relative lack of waxy residue left behind on our hands and bowls. Though cleaning them still took some scrubbing, they were easier to clean than their much stickier counterparts, and they resisted stains for the most part. They held up to washings well, retaining their clinging ability after more than 10 rounds of cleaning.
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
These wraps performed almost as well as our winner; there were only a few occasions when their seals were not quite as strong during our bowl compatibility tests. Still, we were satisfied overall with their seals, and their food storage ability was among the best in our lineup. They scrubbed clean with a bit of effort, and they still clung well after repeated washings.
Recommended with reservations
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 1.5 stars out of 3.
These wraps were very sticky straight out of the package, and while that made for strong seals, they coated our hands in residue. They preserved food relatively well, keeping onions and lemons fresh and bread fairly soft, but they didn't work as well on avocados, which are more susceptible to oxidation. They also took extra scrubbing to get clean. Still, they clung well after all our washings.
Not Recommended
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
These wraps were quite malleable and stuck to bowls extremely well, but they left behind the most waxy residue out of any in our lineup, which meant that we had to scrub our hands after every use. They created tight seals due to their waxiness, keeping food fresh, but they clung to bits of food and were extremely difficult to scrub clean.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
These wraps were stiff straight out of the package and didn’t cling well, so we couldn’t create strong seals. While these wraps were a bit easier to scrub clean than others due to their relative lack of stickiness, bread and avocados wrapped in them deteriorated faster than those covered in both plastic wrap and the stickier wraps in our lineup.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
These wraps weren’t sticky or flexible enough to create strong seals; during the grape test, the seals easily broke and fruit went everywhere. They also didn’t adhere well to themselves, which meant trying to wrap them around food was a hassle and the foods stored using them went bad the fastest. They were slightly easier to clean than other wraps in our lineup, but that didn’t redeem them in our eyes.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Chase Brightwell
Chase is an associate editor for ATK Reviews. He's an epidemiologist-turned-equipment tester and biscuit enthusiast.