I am not one of those parents who believed in the hype about play silks. I try to practice Waldorf and Montessori based methods of play in our home, but the play silk component never resonated with me. I kept seeing cute kiddos everywhere twirling play silks in the air and my curiosity got the better of me. Not wanting to invest $20 in one silk, I first got a set of cheap Chinese silks. Granted these are also made in China...but I'll come back to that. My 1.5 yo toddler and 9 yo son used the cheap silks for lots of imaginative play. For my toddler the main ways of play were to use them as scarves, or to look at my husband, my son and I through them, and gleefully giggle when we became "colorful" family members. My 9 yo son used the green ones as forest settings for our holztiger wooden animals, the blue ones as seas for our pirate ship, the yellow ones were lava in some stories, so on and so forth.

So after seeing that my children were indeed engaged, and their imagination sparked with play silks, I decided to take the leap and I ordered two play silks from another website where it was 20% cheaper than Amazon (at this time of writing). We got the "Emerald" play silk from their original line, and the "Sea" play silk from this "Enchanted" line.

These silks are so different than the cheap ones we originally had. These silks are so incredibly soft. They appear to be an actual silk material, whereas the other ones I had were a shiny mesh material that sort of crinkled like taffeta. These are much more trim, but also a far bigger size 35"x35" inches. They allow for us to have bigger "forests" where not just the lion and the lioness enter the forest, but the buck, his doe and two fawns can come onto the silk as well, plus many more animals, trees, and other props as needed! These Sarah's silks can also be laid in a single layer and you can still see the piercing green or blue against the floor. Our other silks were almost see-through and you had to double/triple layer fold them to be able to have a good green background. These silks are see through but I would say they are more opaque, than transluscent.

The "Sea" colored silk from the "Enchanted" line is really a beauty to me. It has a nice ombre effect that starts off with a sea blue in the middle. That slowly gradients into a teal/sky blue on both sides, which gradients into a nice mermaid green, and finally ends with a light, slightly blue tinged, green.

These are also great for sensory play. My 1.5 yo daughter likes to put different textures of clothing against her skin or head, and walk around with those at this age. I like draping these silks around her neck, and very loosely tying them as a cape since I know it gives her that silky soft texture which is enjoyable to experience. She smiles in delight as I do so, and sometimes just stares at herself in the mirror smiling for a few minutes before taking off with her "cape". Sort of like when we adults rub a piece of soft material against our cheeks, except for them it's rubbing something soft and silky all over with pleasant sensation :)

My only qualm with this product is that I usually love to support made-in-USA companies, but with these silks I am helping support production in China instead. Be that as it may, since I have not found a worthy competitor, I am eager to slowly add these play silks to our collection in the future after seeing the quality up close, and more importantly the use my children get out of this.