My Quest for the Perfect Cold Porcelain Recipe Part 1

I've been promising Christen to post a review about 2 different cold porcelain recipes I've tried. I FINALLY got the ingredients for the second one a week ago and FINALLY had time to try it out. Firstly, what is cold porcelain? "Cold porcelain is not real porcelain, it got its name because the finished product looks like porcelain. It is air dry clay that does not require firing or heating of any kind." It's basically: glue and cornstarch clay. It's a cheap alternative to polymer clay that you can make at home! (Or buy in the store but that defeats the point!) I've seen many beautiful and delicate sculptures made from it. (All images taken from deviantart and the sculptures belong to their respective artists: Veggies, Kirara, and Mew) All recipes for cold porcelain contain glue and cornstarch and have the same basic instructions: combine ingredients in a pot over medium heat and stir until the mixture pulls away from the sides. Cold porcelain dries semi translucent and you can add paint to tint it. Something to keep in mind: the color darkens as it dries and it shrinks (which can cause cracking it it's not kneaded enough). After a researched several sites, I settled on this one to try first because the ingredients were the simplest and easiest to find. I found the first cold porcelain recipe I tried from squidoo.com. Ingredients: 1 cup pva glue (white glue like Elmer's Glue All) 1 cup cornstarch 1 tablespoon mineral oil (baby oil) 1 tablespoon lemon juice, witch-hazel, or clove oil (I used lemon juice which is not pictured.) I did not like this recipe. The ingredients required a lot of stirring and took about 10 minutes to solidify. Afterward, the clay was really sticky so the cleanup of my pot and spoon required a lot of scrubbing. I had to add cornstarch to be able to use it and then when it became too dry I added more mineral oil to moisturize it again (like the instructions say) but the mineral oil didn't fully mix with the already-made clay. Pieces of clay didn't want to combine or stick to one another properly. Everything I made cracked no matter what I did and the clay itself was just difficult to work with. My second attempt went much better! The ingredients were a little harder to find because I didn't know where to get glycerin or what cold cream was! I used the recipe from craftstylish.com. Ingredients: 3/4 cup white glue 1/2 cup water (not pictured.) 1 teaspoon cold cream (such as Pond's) 1 teaspoon glycerin 1 cup cornstarch, plus additional for dusting your hands For those who are ignorant like me, cold cream is used to remove make-up so it is found with cosmetics. I found my glycerin in the pharmacy department of Wal-Mart near the bandages. It was on a bottom shelf. Glycerin is also used in baking (for icing, fondant, candy, etc.) so it should also be in the cake decorating section of your local craft store. This recipe was slightly different because it had me combine the wet ingredients first which didn't take much time. After I added the cornstarch, it took about a minute for the mixture to solidify and pull away from the walls of the pan. The clean up took far less time. At first, I put it on wax paper to cool but when I tried to knead it the paper tore. I don't know if this is because my wax paper is cheap or the "clay" was just too hot. I switched it out for parchment paper. The clay itself is far less sticky but more malleable than the other recipe. (It smells nice too because I didn't get the unscented cold cream.) I dyed it with acrylic paint and made a little monster. I'm sad to say this recipe is actually worse than the previous recipe. I can't get it to dry without cracking. TO BE CONTINUED...