This elaborate costume was made out of a trash can

Since 1972, when Mummenschanz began, the troupe’s been making masks and costumes from just about anything: plastic, toilet paper, foam rubber, Slinkys … pastry dough!

That last figured in one of the mime troupe’s sexier sketches, in which a pair of lovers gobble each other up. At least, that was how it was supposed to go, Mummenschanz founder Floriana Frassetto tells The Post — until the day an understudy wore a pastry mask she’d made herself.

“She put too much butter in it and the whole dough fell on the floor,” recalls Frassetto, who was sitting in the audience that day, taking notes. “I thought, ‘Oh God, bend down, pick it up and just shlonk it on your face!’ But no. She just stood there.”

Which may be why, even at 67, Frassetto still prefers to perform some sketches herself. You’ll see her and her wordless colleagues in “You & Me,” the troupe’s first New York show in nearly four years, running through July 22 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

Alas, you won’t see that pastry-dough sketch. “It only works in a small hall, where you can see it up close,” Frassetto says. But there’ll be plenty else, including a new creature called Big Eye. Speaking from her home in Switzerland, Frassetto breaks him down for us.

A seahorse and Big Eye are just a few of Mummenschanz’s whimsical creations.Marco Hartmann

The head

“This is a plastic trash can I bought at a Staples store. I loved the shape of it — it’s kind of oval, not your usual, round, boring trash can. One day, I thought, ‘Wait, I think I can make that a head!’”

The eyes

“I bought these salad bowls from a store in America where you can get two [bowls] for $5.99. At first, I covered them with some stretchy material I found in a very ritzy kitchen store. It looked like Play-Doh, and was beautiful, psychedelic. But every time I tried to put it over the eyes, it broke. So, in the garbage. Then, I thought, ‘Bathing caps!’ I live 20 minutes from Austria and went to a swimming shop there and found these wonderful blue ones.”

The feet

“I found these flippers at a thrift shop somewhere in Switzerland and put some black velvet on them. They make a cute plastic sound on the floor. It doesn’t sound as nice as a tap dance, but it’s a little like that.”