Cling film

What is cling film?

Cling film (called plastic wrap for the household kind, stretch wrap for the industrial kind) is thin plastic off a roll that clings to itself and to smooth surfaces without any glue. In BDSM bondage it wraps someone layer over layer, which is where the term earns its place. Household cling film is about eight to thirteen micrometers thick.

Why cling film behaves the way it does

Because the film bonds to itself without any glue involved.

The encyclopedia describes household cling film as a thin plastic film that clings to many smooth surfaces and stays taut without adhesive. The common thickness used to be about 12.7 micrometers, but the trend is toward thinner: most brands now sit at eight, nine, or ten micrometers. PVC is still the most widely used material worldwide, and it has low permeability to water vapor and oxygen, which is exactly why food keeps longer in it.

Stretch wrap works differently. The encyclopedia entry on stretch wrap calls it a highly stretchable film whose elastic recovery keeps the load tight. Films like this stretch to about five hundred percent before they break, but in use they get pulled to somewhere between one hundred and three hundred percent. The same source notes that stretch wrap is usually not made from material approved for food contact.

Why people use cling film

Because it costs nothing, fits any body shape, and holds itself in place with no knot, buckle, or lock. One roll from the supermarket is enough to wrap someone from ankle to shoulder, and each layer pulls tighter the more you add.

Cutting it off is the only way out; you cannot unwrap it. So anyone who starts always needs a pair of scissors that get through plastic without touching skin.

What to watch for

Heat is the clock. Because cling film blocks water vapor, sweat cannot evaporate, and evaporation is the main way a body sheds heat. What that does, and how long you can keep going because of it, is on the page about cocooning.

Think about which roll you grab. Stretch wrap off the pallet is wider and stretches much further than the kitchen roll, but it is usually not approved for food contact and so was never meant to sit against skin for hours. And never lay a layer over the nose or the mouth, however thin the film is.

If you want to feel what it is like to be wrapped layer over layer that way, with someone keeping an eye on the time and the heat, that belongs to a BDSM date.

Sources

• Plastic wrap. Wikipedia. Provides the description of household cling film as a thin plastic film on a roll that clings to smooth surfaces without adhesive, the common thickness of about 12.7 micrometers and the shift toward eight to ten micrometers, and the materials PVC (the most widely used worldwide, with low permeability to water vapor and oxygen) and polyethylene with linear polyethylene for the cling.
• Stretch wrap. Wikipedia. Provides the description of stretch wrap as a highly stretchable film whose elastic recovery keeps the load tight, the stretch range of about five hundred percent at breaking against one hundred to three hundred percent in use, and the caveat that the material is usually not approved for food contact. The article has carried its own note since March 2023 that it needs more sources; it is used here only for those three points.

Related terms

• Cocooning. The practice cling film gets reached for most often, with the time limit that heat imposes.
• Bondage tape. The other material that clings to itself and not to skin, and the entry the A to Z list files the word tape under.
• Body bag. The same enveloping effect, but reusable and with a zipper.
• Bondage. The umbrella term, with the rules of thumb that apply to cling film too.
• Mummification. The practice cling film is the cheapest material for.