heat shrink wrap/bands for decant vials/bottles

[The Knize]

Does anyone have any experience to share in using heat shrink wrap/bands for decant/sample bottles that they would be willing to share?

First, are they worth bothering with for any reason? Can they substitute for simply running a piece of tape around the top of the vial/bottle where the cap and bottle come together? (What kind of tape do folks find best anyway? If pluses and minuses to various types, what are those pluses and minuses?)

How about simply heat shrink wrapping the entire decant container? Is that better? Does on have to buy sleeves or enevelopes exactly the right size or can larger sizes be adapted to smaller bottle than they were designed for?
Seems like one needs to buy exactly the right size of heat shrink band or envelope for the bottle as a practical matter from what I can tell.

What are experiences with hair driers versus heat guns? How about "sealers"? Is there any susbtitute for a "sealer"?

If these bands/wraps do not stop leakage, what purpose can they serve, if any, for decants, other than aesthetics, I suppose? I am not knocking aesthetics, by the way!

Any other tips for using heat shrink products anyone wants to share?

[Cuttingboard]

No idea but you've peaked my interest.

[BrianL]

Heat shrink bands are designed for tamper evidence not leak protection. The best way to apply would be a heat gun at a low setting for a short period of time. The bands may help, but your best bet may be electrical tape followed by external protection like a zip lock bag or another larger container.

[The Knize]

Heat shrink bands are designed for tamper evidence not leak protection. The best way to apply would be a heat gun at a low setting for a short period of time. The bands may help, but your best bet may be electrical tape followed by external protection like a zip lock bag or another larger container.

Thanks. I will comment back with some thoughts--probably on each of your points, not that I necessarily disagree with any of them--but I want to first let other folks weigh in with any thoughts/experiences they have to relate, before I say anything, to avoid my influences the responses too much.

[warlandsboy]

When sending out samples/decants I've just used black electrical tape for added protection against leakage. I've never once experienced any leakages in all the packages I've sent out.

In regards to the heat shrink wrap, I've only ever encountered one person who uses this on their decants (SirSlarty of Basenotes), and although I appreciate the purpose of this, I've found things can get quite messy afterwards. I suppose I may have a different view on it if I was actually running a business and/or making money off it.

[The Knize]

When sending out samples/decants I've just used black electrical tape for added protection against leakage. I've never once experienced any leakages in all the packages I've sent out.

In regards to the heat shrink wrap, I've only ever encountered one person who uses this on their decants (SirSlarty of Basenotes), and although I appreciate the purpose of this, I've found things can get quite messy afterwards. I suppose I may have a different view on it if I was actually running a business and/or making money off it.

<I've found things can get quite messy afterwards>

Thanks for the comments. The above sounds very interesting indeed! Can you explain what exactly got "quite messy" and how and/or what the characteristics of "messy" are in this instance? Many thanks. More on electrical tape and similar in a later post, I promise!

[warlandsboy]

<I've found things can get quite messy afterwards>

Thanks for the comments. The above sounds very interesting indeed! Can you explain what exactly got "quite messy" and how and/or what the characteristics of "messy" are in this instance? Many thanks. More on electrical tape and similar in a later post, I promise!

When you untwist the decant, the shrink wrap seems to almost absorb some of the liquid and becomes very stringy and difficult to remove (sometimes coming off in strands). Truthfully, I was always a bit confused as to its exact purpose.

[The Knize]

When you untwist the decant, the shrink wrap seems to almost absorb some of the liquid and becomes very stringy and difficult to remove (sometimes coming off in strands). Truthfully, I was always a bit confused as to its exact purpose.

Yikes! Thanks. I think what I would have in mind would have a perforated "strip" down the side that the user would basically pull up with a fingernail and pull down the side to remove the shrink wrap band essentially by opening it up down the side. It occurs to me that the perforations may actually weaken the band and may it less suitable as something to keep the screw top from turning and loosening and/or from anything leaking out, but, in my imagination, anyway, the idea would be to replace something like electrical tape (to me there are reasons to prefer Scotch tape for this application, actually) with something that does the same thing, more or less, is more aesthetically pleasing, but comes off completely, more easily, and more cleanly. Something that does not come off completely, is more diffcult to remove than tape, and leaves more residue than tape would clearly not advance the ball. Something that tended to soak up some of the conents of the vial/decant bottle would truly not be a good thing!

Keep the thoughts and experiences coming though. They are much appreciated.

[The Knize]

Hmmm. Not a lot of response on this. Here is my thinking so far, as I promised above.

Scent sellers like Pinaud seem to use shrink wrap bands not only as something to show whether anyone has opened the product and taken a "sample" say with a dirty finger, but also has something that holds the cap securely on. But their plastic bottle are designed with a little ring or ridge right under where the bottle cap ends up when it is screwed down, so there is something in place for shrink band to "grab a hold of" to pull the cap tightly down as it shrinks. Cylindrical decant vials do not have such a ridge, so unless the shrink band goes all the way past the bottom of the vial and laps over the top of the cap, it is not going to pull down very hard to keep the cap on. But if it does, it should do a nice job of pulling the cap down tight. (The tape has adhesive so it can stick to glass and poly propol cap to hold the cap tight to the vial. Tape may also provide more resistence to the cap's turning and becoming loose. The shrink band has no adhesive on it--which is an advantage in that it comes off cleanly--so it may be less effective in keeping the cap from turning, although depending on what kind off grooves the cap has, the band will provide some.

I have not tested them, but word is that the shirnk bands dissolve easily in EOs or in alcohol based frags. So if there was a leak one could not expect shrink bands to hold back leakage. Depending on the particular tape and the amount of leakage, I would assume that alcohol would dissolve adhesive, too, so if there was much leakage, I would not expect tape to help all that much either. Although, I think the first line of defense is really to keep that cap from working loose.

I suppose the problem of tape leavving residue can be dealt with by finding tape that leaves a minimum. This seems to vary quite a bit among electrical tapes.

I got a cheap heat gound over the weekend and a cheap "impulse sealer." But I have not had the chance to play with them. There seems to be a lot of difference of opinion as to whether a hair drier or a heat gun is better. Some saying the former is not hot enough, and others saying the latter is too hot and hard to control.

I do not plan on doing a lot of decants, so this exercise is mostly for fun for me. So far, I think sheathing 1/2, 1, 2, and say 4 dram cylindrical vials with perforated heat shrink bands, perforated along the "long way," is a pretty nifty substitute for tape. Aesthetically pleasing, clean, effective, easy and fast to apply, etc. As for sealing larger bottle in shrink evelopes, I am not sure yet. Seems like it would provide some protection, but comes put looking rough. I would still put things in zip lock bags, though.

[BrianL]

The electrical tape sort of stretches when applied and the scotch tape will not. There are also colored electrical tapes available and the adhesive is not too "sticky" and can be eaisly removed. This is only a suggestion, but if you are going to be shipping these items a slightly larger bottle to protect the inner bottle may be worth looking into. A 100cc vitamin type bottle with a cap that has a cap liner may be eaiser to deal with than tapes or bands.

[The Knize]

The electrical tape sort of stretches when applied and the scotch tape will not. There are also colored electrical tapes available and the adhesive is not too "sticky" and can be eaisly removed. This is only a suggestion, but if you are going to be shipping these items a slightly larger bottle to protect the inner bottle may be worth looking into. A 100cc vitamin type bottle with a cap that has a cap liner may be eaiser to deal with than tapes or bands.

Thanks, Brian.

So is the fact that electrical tape stretches a benefit or a negative, and in what ways? To me Scotch tape seems more tenacious, but electrician's tape easier to open/remove. I am not sure there is really a need to remove the Scotch tape. Just run a sharp eadge around it. But aesthetically, taking it off completely may be desirable.

I I think I understand re the larger bottle on the outside to protect the inner bottle. A larger bottle on the outside would at rigidity, etc. to keep the inner bottle from being crushed, too, besides taking care of any leakage issues. Are you thinking of basically using two bottles for each decant vial/bottle? Potentially runs up the costs of decants bottles doesn't it? I suppose one could have a larger bottle with more than one vial on the inside.

Leakage has a couple of aspects at least. First, you want to keep all of the decant inside the one vial, if possible, so that you do not lose any of the juice.

Second, if juice leaks out, you want to be able to recover part of it, if possible, but you also want to make sure it does not soak/drip out of the rest of the packaging creating a big mess and maybe creating issues with the post office.

I would think that re the first point, one is going to want to use tape or shrink wrap, no matter what. All is happier if that cap stays securely on that vial or bottle.

Re the second points, there are two goals: Keep the vial or bottle from being crushed or from otherwise leaking. If it does leak, keeping the leak contained. Re keeping the leak contained, I think I would always, taped or not, put the vials is a zip lock bag. Something like an outer bottle, though, also helps provide crush resistance as well as leakage containment. Crush resistance can be obtained other ways as well, of course, which may be cheaper, or easier, although less effect than double bottliing. If the frag was expensive enough, I have packed vials surrounded by bubble wrap in pieces of PVC pipe. It would take quite the incident for a package to get crushed in a way that would crush a piece of PCV pipe, but the stuff is kind of heavy!

Thanks for the tips!