I feel silly even asking for help on this, but I just purchased the Jester set of 89 petal dusts. They arrived in these small plastic containers. Little did I know that trying to get the lids off would break fingernails and hurt like crazy! I stopped trying to open them after the first one took me 5 minutes and made my hands hurt.

Does anyone have advice on how to best open these little torture devices? I would appreciate any help.

Old fashioned bottle opener..the side that's flat not the side that has the hook. Its the only way to get them open. SIGH...I know, right? Precious, expensive dust that they make you have to wrench the top off of the container! UGH! BUT, you can gently lift the edges with the bottle opener till you get all the way around it and they will open.

thanks for the tip! i was experimenting with a spoon this morning and that helped a bit too. I am seriously considering buying the small screw-top jars to house them.

LOL! That is exactly what I was gonna say. THey are a pain to open. I use the bottle opener too. Mine as a flat side and a pointed side. The flat side works perfect. I didnt know they had a set like that! I may have to check that out. Did it save you a good amount by buying it like that/

JCE, I saved about $6. They sell a whole set of 48 colors in the 4 gram canisters for $89. If you were to buy all of them individually at the $1.99, it would be $95.52. I love the fact that there are so many colors, and I get to experiment with them and figure out which ones I know I will definitely need. Definitely a better idea than buying them in the store, which can be $3.99 per color!

Yeah, I think the ones I was buying were 2.89. Im gonna go look at that. Im glad you posted this!

CutieMcCakes, if you are looking for screw top containers, I found a set of 30 containers in the beads section at Michael's for $7.99. They come in a plastic box that hold all 30 containers snug inside.

I haven't put my dusts yet(seeing how hard they are to open, I plan on transferring them when I do happen to open one), but it should easily hold the contents of a regular size petal dust.

I was so thrilled to find the screw-top boxes after huffing and puffing and gnawing at the tops! HTH

I wish I'd known how awful those were going to be before I bought a bunch of them. Someone mentioned using a church key type bottle opener, which I don't have. I used the other kind - the one with the flat end and the pointy end.

I picked up some plastic bead containers from JoAnn Fabrics - they come in two sizes: 12 cups and 24 cups. The cups are clear with clear screw on lids that fit in a clear case. You can see every color easily and they're now easy to open. I went a step further and made little labels on the computer with the brand and color so I wouldn't buy something I already had. Has made my cake decorating so much easier than fiddling with those awful little plastic snap on lids! AAAAACK!

Newmansmom, did you see my message about where I got my petal dusts? They are much cheaper than the $3.99 and $4.99 each. I was sick of paying that too, and then another CC member told me about Jester, and i'm hooked at that price. Can't beat it!