Darwi Vernis is a varnish for polymer clay and other craft surfaces, made by The Clay and Paint Factory in Liège, Belgium — the same factory that makes Cernit. It is hard to get hold of outside Europe, which is why Ginger Davis Allman names us as one of the few US sources for it in her review — we import it directly.

Brush-on satin. The same varnish as the gloss, in a satin finish — a soft, low sheen rather than a mirror. It is the one to reach for when a piece should look finished rather than lacquered, and when you would rather not have a shine competing with the surface underneath. Like the gloss it has the consistency of clear nail polish and lays down thicker than most clay varnishes, and it protects just as hard.

Satin also hides small imperfections better than gloss does, because it does not throw a highlight across every ripple and fingerprint.

Applying it: use a soft, slow mopping stroke rather than a scrubbing one, which whips in bubbles. Brush marks largely self-level. Thin coats dry in two to four hours; a genuinely thick coat can take a few days, so give it longer than you think before handling.

One important limitation. This finish is hard, and hard means inflexible. On anything that bends — cutter earrings, thin slabs, wearables that flex in use — it will crack and flake off. It is the right varnish for beads, sculptures, ornaments and anything rigid, and the wrong one for anything that moves. Worth being clear about before you coat a finished piece.

It seals air-dry clay as well as polymer — including Darwi’s own self-hardening clays, which are porous until they are varnished.

Test first. Every sealer behaves differently on different clay brands. Varnish a baked scrap of the clay you are actually using and leave it a few days before committing a finished piece.

Shipping note — please read before ordering. This product is classified as a hazardous material by USPS and UPS, so it cannot travel by air. Any order containing it moves by ground carrier, and that applies to the whole box — anything packed alongside it ships ground too. If an order is large enough to need a second box, that box can go by the usual service.

Ground shipping on hazardous materials has sometimes run slower than an ordinary ground shipment. We ship from outside Seattle, so the further east you are, the more time to allow. If you need it by a particular date, please order with room to spare.

Specification. 250 ml. Brush-on. Satin finish. Made in Belgium.

Ginger Davis Allman’s Thick, glossy varnish for polymer clay at The Blue Bottle Tree covers the brush-on varnish; she tested the gloss, and the satin is the same product in a lower sheen.