Your Choice of Flowers: Silk or Dried?
Silk Flowers, Common Sense Choices

If you had your choice of silk flowers or dried flowers for an arrangement, wreath, centerpiece, or simple stems, which would you choose? Before you answer, I have another question. When was the last time you took a peek at the silk flowers of today? The advancements made in silk flower production have made them more realistic than their dried counterparts (which I find amusing, considering that the dried flowers are actually the genuine flowers).

Dried flowers are produced using a number of methods. Hot air treatment, time hanging, drying machines, wet or dry chemical treatment, and freeze drying are all flower drying techniques. The one thing they all have in common? The results pale in comparison when placed side-by-side with silk flowers.

Here are a few more disadvantages of dried flowers:

o When flowers are dried, their color and shape is not retained. Often, flowers become shriveled, with a brown tint. You might confuse silk flowers with real ones, but you’ll never confuse a dried flower with a living one.

o Dried flowers retain a portion of their fragrance, so for those of you with sensitive noses, stick with silk.

o If you choose to purchase dried flowers, understand that they’re no bargain.

o If you choose to dry your own flowers, the methods require lots of time, work, and/or money. If you go cheap, you’ll wait for weeks for your flowers. If you want them more quickly, you’ll need to invest the money required for the chemicals or machines to get the work done.

o Dried flowers are more fragile than silk flowers. Therefore, cleaning with compressed air, or even a hairdryer, can cause your dried flowers to lose some of their best assets.

o Dried flowers cannot be exposed to the weather (snow, rain, sun, humidity). That rules out their usage as door wreaths, outdoor décor, and cemetery offerings.

o Don’t try to clean dried flowers with water or any other wet cleaning solution. It will stain, shrivel, and outright ruin them.

o Storage can be a problem with dried flowers. Unlike silk flowers, they are very sensitive to their environments, especially when heat and humidity are factors. This makes storage in attics and basements bad choices.

o Dried flowers often drop petals and debris. Do you really need one more thing to clean up?

o And finally, dried flowers will never last as long as resilient and realistic-looking silk flowers. They’ll simply disintegrate while your silks shine on.


Silk Flowers - A No-brainer

Dried flowers will never stand up to the natural beauty of silk flowers. Silk flowers are fragrance-free, maintenance-free, and make better economic sense than any other choice that requires periodic replacement.

With one final question, I’ll wrap up my rant:

Would you rather have your guests ask where you’ve gotten your pretty dried flower arrangement, or from whose garden you’ve cut the gorgeous fresh flowers? Come on…you know you want to be the first one to tell them that those “fresh” flowers aren’t fresh at all…that they’re actually realistic recreations, in silk.

by Jacinda Little - May, 2009

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Source: http://www.freshsilkflowers.com