Latex Allergy: Part II

[Jolly Well]

I've met many people with a latex allergy and have often thought of ways to circumvent this issue when thinking of clowning and balloon parties. Unfortunately, there is no drop-in alternative on the market, so oft times people with latex allergies are excluded from balloon sculpture.

I've played around with PVC Balloons (Bongo Sticks) and Poly Tubing (the long plastic tubes your vegetables are bagged in at the grocery store) and have had some success. I touched on this a while back, but at the time had really only began playing around with the ideas.

Here is my most recent recap....

PVC Balloons are still difficult to do much with, and you cannot really twist them. You can however, use zip ties or such to make bubbles and make some very basic shapes. Balloon dogs are about as complex as it gets, at least in my experience. They are bulky to work with and I eventually give up on them after the initial success on basic shapes.

Poly Tubing is the best route to go in my opinion. You have to seal it with heat, but you can buy a poly tubing heat sealer for under $100. Considering your basic floor pump runs somewhere in this range, I don't find this price unacceptable.

Poly tubing itself runs about $20 for a roll 2" wide (you get a whopping 2200'), and they make an anti static variety for around $33 per 750' (it gives you a slightly pink shade). A dispenser is about $30 but you could probably make one cheaper - either way it isn't bad since you could get a pretty good supply of tubing ($20 - 2200'), a dispenser for $30, and a sealer for $90 --- grand total: $140.

Once you seal the bags, they can be twisted similar to balloons. A bit more difficult and it would be a good idea to secure the twists (with some sort of zip tie maybe?). I've not gotten around to adding glue dots to poly tubing sculpture, but I think it would open up alot of doors and allow some pretty complex creations.

One of the down-side is color. You're pretty much stuck with clear plastic. I've toyed with the idea of adding some glitter or confetti to add something to them, but've not done this in practice. (Maybe some sort of glitter spray? as long as it isn't an adhesive)

I don't know of anyone personally that is experimenting with either of the options above, but sure someone is doing it somewhere. I'd like to see some more artists get involved with it, but doubt that is likely to happen considering the market is going to be small. I think the pay-off would be worth the $140 investment, and imagine the 2200' of tubing would last a long while.

I'm hoping to start marketing myself by way of hospital clowning and such. I'd wager it would generate at least some sort of media coverage if you market it correctly; which would itself pay for the poly tubing investment with free publicity.

I don't know when I'll get the time to add this. I'd hope by Christmas, but it may be by spring.

Input from the clown/balloon world at large? Think it is worth the effort, or are you finding flaws in my hypothesis before I begin?

Any advice (as always) is appreciated...

[Artsy]

I'm gonna look in to this. The outlay isn't that much and I have a sealer already that i might be able to use at least in the beginning to try it out to test the waters. It's a food sealer thingy that compresses all the air out of food bags, but there is a setting for heat seal only.
I'll give it a whirl around January when I'm not so busy.