Fabric flash point too low; nearly caught fire
This is not a review of the seller; I reached out to her independently. I just wanted to share that microwave potato bags can catch fire in the microwave. After my experience (described below), I learned this by combing through various posts like the following informative comment (from BellaBoo) in one Quilting Board thread:<br /><br />100% cotton batting has scrim. Scrim is a very thin layer of poly over the batting. Too little amount to be listed on the package. Scrim is what will catch on fire. The batting has to say NO SCRIM or it will have scrim. Low wattage microwaves will not get hot enough to cause the scrim to flash so that's why some can use it and never have a problem. There is no excuse for any fabric shop owner/manager to not know this information.<br /><br />I recently purchased the potato bag shown here and had used it several times without incident. I always follow commonly accepted steps (place washed potato in paper towel inside bag, tuck flap half of bag underneath in microwave), and I keep the bag clean and away from oils at all times. However, today, one corner of the bag on the flap side started burning after 5 minutes in my small, low-power microwave (oddly, less time than in the previous uses where burning did not occur). I smelled a bad burning odor emanating from the kitchen, ran in, and yanked the bag from the microwave before flames erupted. The bag was smoldering, and lots of thick black smoke was pouring off it. Can you say hot potato? (Actually, the potato was perfectly cooked!) Fortunately, I caught it in time to save the microwave; it has no visible damage, though I'm not sure if the burnt smell will ever completely clear from it. But that smoke was scary, like oil or tires burning, and the house stunk to high heaven for hours even with the windows wide open and the hood fan on high. I took a couple pictures of the charred bag, which I'll post here if I can figure out how. Basically, one corner looks like charcoal outside (no more print) and inside (no more white); it's completely burnt to a crisp. Needless to say, using potato bags is now officially off my list of ways to save time.
Rating: 1 stars