I made a similar post to this on the 2 + 2 Forum.
I’m not sure what type of oil is being discussed here, but most people use mineral oil to oil their clay chips.
I use a different oil product to enhance the look and feel of the new Paulson JB chips.
First I would like to present some observations I have made about the untreated clay chips. I have found that the JB samples I have do get dirty very quickly, but the dirt is not coming from your hands as long as your hands are fairly clean. The dirt is coming from the darker chips and edge spots, especially that wonderful black chip. You can demonstrate this by taking a clean orange chip and a clean black chip and just rub them together while applying a little force. You’ll see that the dirt on the orange chip is actually material that has rubbed off of the darker chip. This dirtying effect will of course be much less once the chips are stacked and shuffled with chips of the same color. The untreated chips will still get dirty because they will occasionally contact darker colored chips (splashing into the pot etc.), but at a much slower rate.
The product that I use to treat my clay chips is called spoon oil. It is a product that was developed to preserve and protect wooden spoons, utensils and butcher blocks, which is what I used it for in the past. It is a mixture of primarily mineral oil and bees wax. The consistency is a little thicker that mineral oil by it’s self. A little like hand lotion. A 4oz bottle of it will treat about 1,000 chips. It is more expensive that the mineral oil, but it has some advantages over the plain mineral oil. First is seems to last longer than mineral oil. I’ve never had to retreat any chips that I have treated once at least in the last 5 years. Second it makes the chips look and feel better. The colors seem deeper and there is a slight luster to the chips and the surface of the chips become even less slick. I even have to say it even makes them sound a little better by slightly lowering the pitch they make when they click together. Third, it prevents the chips from getting dirty. Even with almost constant shuffling of my two sets of Paulson JB samples and carrying them around in my pockets for the past month, they show no signs of becoming “dirty”. Last but not least is that is makes the chips wear much slower. This is probably why they don’t get dirty.
If anyone is as OSD as I am about my clay chips you can find spoon oil online at Wood ‘N Wares
http://www.woodnwares.bigstep.com/ca...l?UCIDs=694703 
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