"The plastic seems to be a touch softer than the crystal clear plastisol"....Patwr77
Don't let that softness fool you. The Crystal Clear is an excellent plastic as is the Essential. Medium, soft or whatever, that Essential is wayyyy more elastic than the CC. Side by side with the CC at the get together a year ago the Essential product offered considerably more stretch than did the CC. Mo was a tough one to get away from the play station when he found out how much stretch there was. As a beginner plastic I think Essential offers everything one needs while the CC is one to "graduate" to when the learning curve in all of this gets shortened up. The Essential is more forgiving for sure, but the standard was set with the CC. Both are class act plastics.
