#thread conditioner

I had a theory and it checked out.

Historically, people have been running sewing thread through beeswax since many years ago. Waxing thread before hand sewing stops it from twisting and tangling as easily and just generally makes things easier. I talk about waxing thread in the old Reasons You Hate Hand Sewing post.

The main reason why waxing your thread might be bad is that the wax comes off on the fabric, just a bit, and if you hit it with an iron it will fuse the wax into the fabric forever.

To combat this, there’s thread conditioner. You run the thread through the conditioner and it gets some of the conditioner on the thread and it acts like the wax does, but without the problems of wax. There is Thread Magic and you can buy another called Thread Heaven. Both of these are very mystical about what they contain on their websites. They use words like “inert” and “non-toxic” and “non-staining” but they don’t tell you WHAT they are.

As y’all know, I’m not ready to just accept that something is mysterious and corporate secrets. I want to know what it is. I’ve done great research and I have learned many things.

This is Thread Magic. A tub of Thread Magic costs $10.

This is what the box of Thread Magic looks like when it’s opened. Mine’s been used a little bit, but that doesn’t change how it looks too much, except that it’s got some extra lint going through the putty.

This is a 8-pair pack of silicone putty ear plugs that I got at Target for $4.69.

This is what it looks like when you put two of them in the Thread Magic box.

Folks, I’ve done the testing, I have the facts, and Thread Magic and two silicone putty ear plugs operate exactly the same when you put them on some thread.