Hi everyone,
Got a bit of a problem:

I had played clarinet for about 4 years with a bog-standard plastic Yamaha instrument. As you can imagine by the time i reached grade 5 standard this was no good, so i upgraded to a nice wooden one (a Buffet, dont know any other details sorry)...
However within a few weeks of using my new clarinet i started to get an eczema like rash on my lower lip (where the reed sits).
After trying everything i could think of (different reeds, vaseline, savlon, even a different mouthpiece and old clarinet) i saw no improvement so was forced regrettably to stop playing about 2 years ago.
In the mean time i have often tried to play again but every time the rash returns with an hour, even if i use the old [yamaha] clarinet...

But now i have become aware of plastic and synthetic reeds becoming available and would like to give one a try. can anyone recommend one that will be roughly equivalent to a vandoren 2.5 - 3? also will i notice further improvement with a new mouthpiece, that may be better suited to non-wooden reeds??

any help or comments would be greatly appreciated

Thankyou all!

I haven't played plastic with clarinet (except for the big ones), but I find that the plastic are a lot smoother, and are easier to play. Legere is an excellent plastic reed maker. They have a reed comparison chart on their website. I think they recommend getting 1/2 size lower than what you normally play. For the larger reeds they recommend the same strength.

I didn't like my plastic reed. I only used it for a few marching band rehearsals and performances, and I really didn't like the tone it produced. The sound quality is far inferior to that of a standard cane reed.

yea, a plastic reed should be way horrible sound, but it should be smoother, and it is necessary between not playing or worse sound...