Whether you're trying to preserve leftover food or do some cooking in the microwave, there are a number of plastic wraps out there on the market to make your life a whole lot easier. These range from big name brands to ones you can get at the dollar store so, aren't you interested to see which ones are the easiest to use? They actually differ quite heavily in terms of quality, clinginess and strength as well as heat resistance!
Our editors searched Japanese e-commerce sites (Amazon, Rakuten, etc.) for the most popular selling plastic wraps and put them to the test to give you our highest recommendations!
We inspected all the plastic wraps for the following 3 criteria.
So, which ones stood their ground to become our choice for best buy? Take a look at our results for the next time you decide to buy!
Quick List - Top Japanese Plastic Wraps
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Table of Contents
Here we have 4 points we would like everyone to consider when choosing their plastic wrap.
Most plastic wraps are made of either polyvinylidene chloride, polyvinyl chloride, or polyethylene. Here, we'll introduce the characteristics of each one and we'd like you to choose the one that best suits your needs.
Polyvinylidene chloride keeps out moisture allowing your food to keep longer and protects from letting out any unwanted odors.
We especially recommend using a plastic wrap made from this material to store things like meat or fish. It has a resistance to heat as well, making it perfect for use in the microwave.
There are a number of plastic wraps out there made from polyvinylidene chloride. Since it has that "high-grade quality feel" to it, it's a little on the expensive side.
Since plastic wraps containing polyvinyl chloride have great clinging ability, they're recommended for foods or dishes with a lot of liquid. And since the wrap clings so well to containers, it can also be used by restaurants for home delivery of ramen and other dishes.
Its outstanding clinginess prevents liquid spillage but the material itself lets in moisture so it's not recommended for long-term storage.
Hitachi Wrap, Riken Wrap, and Daiso Wrap are all plastic wraps made from polyvinyl chloride. The cost of these is cheaper than ones made from polyvinylidene chloride.
Polyethylene contains less additives than other materials giving it that sense of security. It's also known for its strength and ability to hold in liquids.
Although it's not really resistant to heat and lets in oxygen, it's perfect for items that need to breathe, like fruits and vegetables.
Its cheap cost compared to other plastic wraps also makes it an attractive purchase.
If you plan to use your plastic wrap in the microwave, go with one made from polyvinylidene chloride or polyvinyl chloride. Here's a layout of these material's resistances to heat and cold.
However, even when using wraps made from polyvinylidene chloride or polyvinyl chloride, be careful when heating up foods with high oil content. If the oil exceeds the resistance temperature of the wrap, it has the possibility of melting causing holes to form. To prevent this, try as much as possible to avoid having the wrap touch the oily foods directly.
When choosing to purchase a plastic wrap, try choosing one that has a flap either on the box itself or inside.
The flap is used to allow for easier spooling out of the wrap itself. It is visible in the photo above. As long as there's a flap, you'll be able to easily grab the wrap, pull it out smoothly and cut it with no hassle.
We also recommend those plastic wraps whose boxes come with a stopper preventing the edge of the wrap from getting stuck inside.
Plastic wraps for use at home stress the importance of safety and usually have the teeth of the cutter pointing down but ones used for business are located on the underside for quick and easy cuts.
Each person has their own preference for which one's easier to use but since this part of the box is rather important in terms of ease of use, make sure you know which one you prefer.
Products | Image | Click to purchase | Key features | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Kureha New Kure Wrap | ![]() | The Very Best Plastic Wrap in Japan | |
2 | Asahi Kasei Home Products Saran Wrap | ![]() | The Best in Cutting Power | |
3 | Aeon The Quick and Easy to Cut Kitchen Wrap | ![]() | The Most Balanced Cling Wrap | |
4 | Okamoto Kasinina Tight Wrap | ![]() | The Clingiest Plastic Wrap | |
5 | Shin-Etsu Polymer Polymer Wrap | ![]() | A Stretchy, Clingy Wrap That's Easy to Cut | |
6 | Daiwa-Bussan Food Wrap | ![]() | A Wrap High in Clinginess But Lacking in Some Areas | |
7 | Mitsubishi Chemical Diawrap | ![]() | A Clingy Wrap with a Bit of Effort | |
8 | Aeon Food Storage Wrap - Regular | ![]() | The Best Budget Wrap | |
9 | Muji Food Plastic Wrap | ![]() | A Good-quality Wrap with Technical Issues | |
10 | White Max EMBalance Fresh Wrap | ![]() | A Clingy Wrap, but Difficult to Remove |
A spectacle of amazement, coming in first place is Kureha's NEW Kure Wrap! With just the right thickness, it cuts off easily no matter how long of a sheet you need.
This was the only wrap we tested to have a V-shaped cutter, where you're able to cut the wrap not from the edge but from the middle. There's also a prevention measure so the wrap doesn't get caught in the flap which makes drawing out the wrap itself extraordinarily easy.
This wrap's clinginess was average but its ability to hold in odors rated incredibly high - so much that you'd be more worried about the smell of the rubber band holding the wrap in place.
Here at mybest, we have enough confidence to say that this is, by far, the best and strongest plastic wrap sold in Japan!
This wrap had a thick, tough feel to it, allowing you to get the perfect cut every time. It holds in odors surprisingly well, to the point that we left a container of food out covered in wrap for 6 hours without any problem at all.
You'll have a tough time separating this wrap should it ever become stuck to itself and, because of that, it unfortunately didn't score well on clinginess.
Try your best not to get any wrinkles in it by carefully pressing it down with your fingers.
With a gentle, soft feel that won't stretch out, this is a wrap that'll tear off with no problem at all. With its high strength, it rated highly in clinginess. There was minimal spillage where the wrap overlapped the edge of the container.
Since it doesn't stretch out, it's easy to cut. And since the flap makes it simple to pull out, it truly is reflective of its name, which is why it ranked in at 3rd place.
Its one flaw is that it doesn't hold in odors as well as we had hoped. The smell wasn't bad enough for us to give it our worst rating, but we can't recommend this product for preserving strong-smelling foods for a long period of time.
This wrap had a thin, soft feel to it. It's a bit easy to tear and its clinginess is outstanding. With the strength of polyvinyl chloride, not even the slightest drop of liquid will escape.
It has a good feel when being cut but if you cut it a bit too short, it tends to stretch out making it more difficult. Although it didn't get the lowest ranking, we were kind of worried about its inability to trap in odors, which led it to be left out of the top 3.
The thin and soft polyvinyl chloride stretches well while remaining strong, giving it a high rating in the category of clinginess. Since it lacks thickness, you won't have a problem even if you overlap it.
Even though the cutter is on the bottom, the wrap doesn't stretch out much, making it comparatively easy to cut, even when cutting short amounts.
This wrap rates quite high in terms of clinginess. There's a bit of leakage but you shouldn't have a problem using it for most storage options.
One flaw it has is that the wrap stretches too much when attempting to cut it, making it difficult. It's also not very strong.
Other than that, the wrap flies out at times and you can't cut it right after drawing it out since the flap is in the corner. Small things like these make this wrap rather difficult to use.
This wrap felt a lot like those ranked in lower in the test yet this one was a bit more clear in appearance.
Its clinginess was also remarkable, giving it our highest score in that category. Since the cutter is on the bottom, it takes a bit of work in order to get the cut you're looking for.
There was no problem with the cut itself but there were times when the edges wouldn't cut off properly causing the wrap to stretch. It failed in terms of keeping in odors so this product is not recommended for strong-smelling foods.
Thin and soft, perfectly reflective of the price. It doesn't stretch out well when you pull on it, making it easy to tear.
The wrap does have a good feel to it when cutting it but, with the absence of a flap, it's unfortunately difficult to pull out. We were worried a bit about its inability to hold in odors but it ranked high in terms of clinginess giving it good defense against leakage.
Here we have a plastic wrap without a box so we had to buy a case for it by the same maker. The wrap itself is good quality with above-average clinginess that effectively holds in odors.
The wrap stretched well and we didn't have trouble cutting it but the case is rather heavy and the lid for the cutter doesn't open and close smoothly. The silicon preventing the wrap from rolling back up is nice but since there's no paper flap, you have to work at getting the wrap out.
Thin and soft with a silky feel to it, it didn't seem like it had the stickiness we were looking for but once we put it on it stuck so hard, it was even a bit difficult to get off.
Although we didn't have too much of a problem with cutting it, we found getting the wrap out to be rather stressful. Since there's no flap, the wrap sticks to the box and tends to tear when trying to get it out.
We purchased the top 20 best-selling plastic kitchen wraps from Japanese websites like Amazon, Rakuten, etc. and put them to the test!
We tested each product for the following 3 points.
① Ease of Use
② Clinginess
③ Ability to Trap in Odor
We made cuts at 6 and 12 inches, 5 times each for all products to test whether or not we experienced any stress or resistance.
We checked for whether or not it was easy getting the wrap out, whether the wrap came flying out when pulling at it, and if the wrap itself cut well without stretching out too much. We then rated them for their overall ease of use.
What influenced our rating the most were how easy the wrap was to get out and how well it cut. We found out from our tests that the easiest ones to use were ones fit with a flap on the box and whose wrap was made out of polyvinylidene chloride! Having these two conditions are quite representative of a well made plastic wrap.
There were a lot of wraps whose faults were found with its packaging. For example, the stopper equipped for preventing the wrap from flying out of the box dug into the center too much and gave us resistance when trying to get the wrap out or the wrap flying out for no reason or the edge of the wrap getting caught back up in the roll.
We filled ceramic bowls with 20 milliliters of colored water and covered each one with 12 inches of wrap.
We shook each bowl 30 times to see how much liquid would escape and gave those with minimal leakage our highest rating.
When testing for clinginess, the ones that rated the highest were the ones made of polyvinyl chloride. The ones we found to be thinner and softer were especially effective against leaks, even after getting wrinkled.
The polyethylene wrap also scored well on the clinginess test. These ones don't stretch out as much as the polyvinyl chloride ones do, so choose the one that's right for you.
We filled a plastic cup with 30 grams of kimchi, vinegar and blue cheese and covered it with our plastic wraps. We then triple wrapped each cup with rubber bands to prevent odors from escaping as much as possible, put each cup inside a Ziplock bag and let it sit for 6 hours at room temperature.
After the 6 hours, we smelled each bag and gave the ones with the lowest amount of odor our highest rating.
With other materials, you're bound to be confronted with some horrific smells but with plastic wraps made of polyvinylidene chloride, there is almost no smell at all. While conducting this test, we decided to hide the names of the materials of each plastic wrap but those made with polyvinylidene chloride received our highest rating.
On the other hand, those wraps made from polyvinyl chloride tended to give off the most odor. Unfortunately, there's no perfect product out there unbeatable in both clinginess and odor suppression.
You can use your plastic wrap soon after purchasing it but if you'd like to pair it with either a wrap case or wrap holder, you'll find your work in the kitchen a lot more pleasant.
In the articles below, you'll find highly-efficient wrap cases and fashionable wrap holders so, if you're interested, check them out as well!
No. 1: Kureha|New Kure Wrap
No. 2: Asahi Kasei Home Products|Saran Wrap
No. 3: Aeon|The Quick and Easy to Cut Kitchen Wrap
No. 4: Okamoto|Kasinina Tight Wrap
No. 5: Shin-Etsu Polymer|Polymer Wrap
View Full RankingThe descriptions of each product are referenced from content available on manufacturer, brand, and e-commerce sites.
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