I have this:
And I love it. It isn’t sharp, yet it can cut plastic. I have no idea how it works so well, but it does. Added bonus is I can’t cut myself by accident.
My plan is to buy a bunch for christmas and give them to everyone so we aren’t passing around a pocket knife this year.
This problem is exacerbated when you are in an airport and buy things from those Best Buy kiosks. My boyfriend once bought a pair of headphones, and it took us a long time jamming the packaging with a ballpoint pen and prying it open before we could get them out. No one in the airport had anything remotely sharp or pointy, of course, so it was quite a challenge. Took a good 15 minutes of poking, twisting, jabbing, prying, etc, but we did it! Felt so accomplished afterwards too 
I just ordered four of them. I had no idea there were so many gadgets out there for opening things. I think it’s a conspiracy between package makers and package opener makers!
What kind of packaging do the package openers come in?
I went with this thing: Open It! It has offset jaws to snip around clamshell packaging and cut zip-ties and those twist-ties in kids’ toys. Plus, it has a spring-loaded utility knife in the handle to cut anything you can’t use the jaws on, and a mini screwdriver to open battery compartments.
I vote apply to the manufacturer.
Again, I vote apply to the manufacturer.
I tried it, and it didn’t work. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but I could not get the cutting wheels to bite. Of course, it was also a very old can opener that I keep as a spare; I moved to the “smooth edge” type of can opener a long time back so I hardly ever use the old type anymore.
Meantime, I found thison Amazon. A bit more expensive than the others here, but it’s Fiskars, which has an excellent reputation for quality.
That one **sachertorte **listed is cute, but I know I’d lose it.
The toenail clippers will also work for the clear plastic seal on bottle tops if they have a file that flips out. The file can also help get the inner seal started. The clippers themselves are also sturdy enough to cut the metal embedded wire ties and the plastic thingies that attach tags to clothing. I keep a pair in my thing drawer just for packaging tasks.
I just looked at this thingie, pretty nifty. It has a very small ceramic blade in the tip that is, in a nutshell, sharp enough to cut plastic but dull enough to not cut you. I would guess it’d probably cut skin if you applied it hard enough, but casual contact won’t do it.
Doesn’t anybody else have a good pair of kitchen shears?
My kitchen shears turned on me yesterday, and took a chunk out of my knuckle while I was trying to cut that damn zip tie.
I have something very similar to that, if not exactly like it. It will cut paper (like a coupon out of the newspaper) or the shrink wrap on a CD or DVD but I don’t think it’s enough to open a hard clamshell package. For those I use boxcutters or kitchen shears.
I have used kitchen shears and then sliced my hand on the plastic as I cut farther into the packaging. You need your hand ABOVE the cutting mechanism, away from the plastic.
I can never find the scissors when opening one of those hard plastic wrapped packages. I end up attacking it with a knife and hoping the knife is strong enough to cut it. If not, I suppose the skill saw might.
The handle on my kitchen shears broke trying to cut open one of those plastic packages. 
This is the one I prefer.
Google “Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging”. Talk about a godsend…
Well maybe you should’ve considered the possibile reprecussions of that whole “Tylenol cynanide” thing, shouldn’t you! (Oh, don’t think we don’t know…we’re on to you!)
My work scissors turned on me yesterday while I was trying to saw through four layers of that packing tape that’s reinforced with the stringy stuff. Scissors slipped and I stabbed myself in the thumb. All that tape just to keep some papers from escaping their cardboard prison.
Every time this subject comes up, I post this clip.
(Ooops, fixed link)
It took me an hour to free my Robosapien from his box. One fucking hour. Every. single. thing. was bolted or screwed on to the package.