This post will be very brief as it's purely informational, especially for beginners. Obviously, those of you who've been in magic for a while already know all these things and their many uses.

A pantry, according to the dictionary, is a cupboard, typically built into a wall, with doors and shelves where various items are stored.

For our purposes, if you're a beginner, it might be "the magician's case" or "the magician's drawer," but over time, we all accumulate more stuff, and a case or a drawer just won't cut it anymore.

ROUGHING AGENTS

Substances whose properties help reduce slipping and increase friction. In magic, they're used for certain decks and for various magical effects.

There are specific ones for magic and alternative options (as is almost always the case), available in spray, liquid, and wax stick formats (this type of wax is not the same as magician's wax).

The best ones (for me)... any of them.

What's important here isn't so much the product we use, but rather the knack (dexterity and skill) we have when applying it, REGARDLESS OF THE PRODUCT.

When using it on a single card, it's not a big deal to mess up or get it right after a few tries. But when you're making something like an Invisible Deck or a Nude Deck, for instance, you have to apply the product to many cards (whatever it may be) and that's when we need to tap into that hidden power called "PATIENCE" and do it slowly and calmly.

Products? There are tons. From specific magic suppliers, I'm not even going to mention them because a simple Google search should be enough.

Generally, the spray version is much better because it's usually less noticeable or even invisible (if applied correctly). It comes in both two-sided and one-sided varieties (the latter being more expensive).

I use a magician's roughing wax stick for a few cards or individual gaffs.

It's a hard wax that smells like horse grease.

Alternatives?...

Clear vinyl sprays, liquid rubber spray, matte varnish spray.

All kinds of clear matte liquid varnishes.

Anti-slip wax for glasses.

For entire decks, I use clear matte liquid varnish, applied with A GOOD BRUSH, and it works great for me.

WAXES, BLU TACK, GLUE DOTS, AND DOUBLE-SIDED TAPE

All of these are generally used for what they are: sticking things. In magic, they're used for various effects, for example, gaining complete control over a freely chosen card by a spectator and then making it appear WHEREVER YOU WANT (I'm saying this without over-explaining, as there are many ways to achieve this with the same method), or for cards to appear (stick) on any surface... like ceilings.

There's not much more to say about these materials (for now), just keep them in mind for your magic stash.

EXTRA:

Another very interesting product is repositionable glue (both in stick and spray form).

As I said, slowly but surely, we'll delve into each of these and some of their uses.

Cheers everyone, and happy magic!!!