5 Simple Ways to Deal With Puzzle Dust When You Have a Jigsaw Puzzle Dust Allergy
Have a Puzzle Dust Allergy?
After a jigsaw puzzle is cut, there is often a residue of cardboard dust that needs to be removed. Some brands — including us here at Blue Kazoo — ensure that this dust is removed before packaging puzzles. But many others leave this dust for customers to deal with.
Anyone that has worked with a puzzle deals with this grayish-blue dust from time to time. For most of us, this new-puzzle dust is simply a “hazard of the game.” But that doesn’t mean there aren’t tried and true tactics for minimizing the annoyance.
Some jokers face down the irritation with humor, suggesting everything from simply loving and accepting it to...snorting it?
Uhhh. No thank you. We’d rather just do the puzzle over and over again till the dust is gone. 😜
OK, so how about some actual help… 🤷♀️
Here are 5 real ways to deal with puzzle dust gleaned from personal experience and suggestions from other serious puzzlers...
5 Tips for Dealing with Puzzle Dust:
1. Piece by Piece Right Out of the Box
This is the most straightforward option, but also the most tedious… When you open puzzles, do your first round of sorting straight from the box instead of ever dumping the puzzle onto your table. Most of the puzzle dust will stay in the box.
2. Let It Out of the Bag
Another very basic option, assuming your puzzle comes in a plastic bag inside the box, is to shake dust into a corner of the bag. Then snip off that corner with scissors, making a hole smaller than the jigsaw puzzle pieces, and shake or pour out the dust.
3. “Strain” Through a Colander
Simply dump your puzzle pieces into a large colander and toss them like a bowl of fresh popcorn you just salted. (You’ll want to do this outside, almost certainly.)
4. Shake in a Laundry Bag
Put your puzzle in a mesh bag and shake, shake, shake. Same concept as above, but you don’t have to be as careful, since the pieces are enclosed in a container.
5. Buy Puzzles That Don’t Have Any
Like ours. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 🤣
Happy, dust-free puzzling!
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