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've never heard of that before, awkward.

That's kind of bizarre, I can't think what might have promted that. I'm not fond of synthetic reeds, but legere are fairly good as far as they go. Get one a similar size as you'd use vandorean and see how well it works.

I think the Legères are the the best synth reeds. I've used them on low clarinet, because they don't warp. Try a Legere 2 and after a while it feels too soft, upgrade. Sorry about your wacky condition. Good luck to you!
BH