Can you take playdough on an aeroplane?

[LuckyNumberFive]

I'm a very frequent flyer but this isn't something I've had to think about before.

I know the liquid rules also cover items that act like a paste, or are spreadable (such as lipstick), do we think that extends to playdough?

I got my lipstick pulled out at Birmingham airport and told to put in my liquids bag, on the basis that it's spreadable. Hence my using it as an example for playdough, which is also spreadable.

My mum got stopped at the airport once with a suspicious Christmas pudding for that reason.

I do think Birmingham are genuinely the only airport to do this, it’s incredibly unusual!

Baby wipes also set off the scanners, I think maybe the density?
Them having to swab something isn’t the end of the world though, if you haven’t got explosives in it then it’ll be fine

Hopefully it was at least December 😂

Never had my face wipes set anything off, maybe they're not as thick as baby wipes

Yes, and Manchester. Apparently it’s a gel, which is a liquid. It’s not a solid. 🤨. Fortunately my want of a holiday trumped the need to explain basic science to Mr Jobsworth so I just shuffled off in my socks muttering “solid, liquid, gas”

And OP, if it is Manchester you’re travelling from I can tell you now that if you try taking Play Doh through there you’ll never see the light of day again. Once had a stern lecture about an apple I was carrying in my hand luggage as apparently it was unusually dense and looked suspicious on the x ray machine. Um, ok?

Airline Security Manager here. Play Doh should be allowed but you may encounter a jobsworth who will confiscate it - the airport screener are a law unto themselves.

But as others have said, it will look like a plastic explosive in the scanners - which are not x-ray in the UK, they're CT scanners because of the density and because they're carbon based so will show up as a brown mass. I would take it out of your bag and show it to the person manning the check point and let them scan it or manually check it separately.

We have taken play doh on a plane without issue. It stayed on the tray table which I disinfected before and after. It was grand.

What are you doing with the playdough? I’m very interested

Thank you! Might be more hassle than it's worth unfortunately then.

Visiting my brother who lives abroad, it's his youngest son's birthday very soon and I've got a few presents to bring over, and a couple from my mum to bring over for him. I've got a 7kg (or 10kg, can't remember) cabin bag allowance but if the playdough from my mum is classed as a liquid I'll not be able to bring that one with me as it won't fit in a clear bag (plus it's still in its playdough box).

Not the point of the thread but how on earth can an airport or anyone for that matter say lipstick or playdoh is a liquid. Can they not say its a prohibited solid? They make the rules after all. It's like me insisting that I want to categorise the airplane as a bicycle because I feel like it. It doesn't reflect very well on the intelligence of people responsible for flying us around the world.

Wet wipes can look like something suspicious. I found this out when I travelled from Heathrow with a make up bag full of single wrapped wipes. I get these at work and thought they’d be amazing in the plane. They were swabbed and scanned a lot.