Does a chip clip actually do anything?

We sell a chip clip, so take the following in that spirit. We have also spent an unreasonable amount of time on this question and we would rather be the people who answered it straight.

Every method, ranked

From most effective to least:

1. Transfer to a rigid container with a gasket. Nothing beats this. A hard wall and a compressed rubber seal is simply a better barrier than a folded sheet of plastic held shut. If you do this already, you do not need us.
2. Roll the bag down tight, then clamp the roll. Rolling removes the air still inside. The clamp then only has to hold the roll together, which is the easiest job you can give it.
3. Fold once and clamp across the full width of the fold. One crease, held along its whole length.
4. Fold once and clamp at a single point. This is the standard chip clip, and it is where most people live.
5. Fold and leave it. Better than nothing, because the crease in a chip bag holds surprisingly well on its own.
6. Nothing. You know how this ends.

So why does anybody use a clip at all?

Because the bag is already there.

That is not a dodge. It is the entire reason this product category exists. A method you actually use beats a method you theoretically approve of. Nobody is decanting a half bag of chips into a sealed canister at nine at night, and a drawer full of containers with mismatched lids is its own kind of defeat.

The clip wins on friction and loses on physics. Worth knowing which is which.

The thing you can go check right now

Clip a half empty bag shut with whatever is in your kitchen. Then hold the closed end up against a window or a lamp.

You will see light through the fold on either side of the jaw.

That is the actual performance of a single point clamp, and it is not a manufacturing defect. A chip bag is a stiff laminate. It holds a crease, which is good, and it resists being flattened, which is bad. Squeeze it in one place and it springs open everywhere else. The clip is doing exactly what it was designed to do. What it was designed to do is hold the bag closed, which is not the same as sealing it.

Where we come into this

A SLIDESEAL holds the fold along six continuous inches instead of at one point. Do the window test again with one on and you will see less light.

That is the claim. Not fresher chips, not a sealed bag, not a number of days. Six inches of continuous contact, which you can verify yourself in about four seconds, against a window, for free.

We would rather you check than believe us.