Soapy Homemade Play Dough For Kids

I know there are many homemade play dough recipes out there – even ones that use unusual ingredients like this one I made with corn starch and hair conditioner!

I was recently looking through The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions 2 and found a recipe for homemade play dough that I haven’t tried before.

This one was called Super Soapy Dough.  Since I have a 3 year old at home that just loves play dough, I just had to try this and see what the soap did to make this homemade play dough recipe stand out.

Ingredients Needed To Make Your Own Soapy Homemade Play Dough:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1/2 cups of salt
• 1 tbs. of liquid soap
• 6-8 drops of food coloring (we used McCormick Neon colors)
• water (about 1 cup)

To start, get a large mixing bowl and add your 2 cups of flour.

Then pour in 1/2 cup of salt.

Then add 1 tbs. of liquid soap.  I used Dawn Platinum because that is what I had on hand. I do want to make this dough using a variety of soap brands and test the difference.

The bright green color of the soap made it that much more fun for my 3 year old.  😉

I let my daughter choose a color from our Neon Food Coloring and she chose pink.  I added about 8 drops.  At this stage, this looks more like a Halloween slime project than nice pink play dough!

Then slowly add in water until a workable dough is formed.  I added water in 1/2 cup intervals, and added about 1 cup total to get a good consistency.  Then I told my daughter to start mixing and she did not hesitate!

Initially, the soap was noticeable in that the mixture did bubble up as she was forming the dough.  The scent of the soap really stood out as well, and made this dough smell a whole lot better than just plain flour/salt dough.  The pink coloring started spreading out, and the forming of the dough was just as much fun as playing with the dough ball at the end!

The dough was nice consistency and I believe extra soft because of the soap.  Plus as I mentioned before, the soap gives it a nice odor.  But once all of the ingredients are mixed together, it doesn’t’ feel “soapy”- it just feels like normal play dough.

If you are a homeschooler looking for a science lesson, you could experiment with different soap brands and do tests on the dough like how long it takes to dry, how high you can build a tower using it, how far you can stretch it before it breaks, etc. and see if different soap brands make a difference on the dough!

My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of making the play dough – and she’s asked me probably about 100 times since to make it again.  I’m sure this will become a regular project (especially when the weather gets warmer and she can mix all she wants – outside!!  Yes, I did have to get the vacuum cleaner out when we were done. 😉  )

Looking for more Kid Friendly concoctions?  Try these:

Toddler Activities: Sensory Bag Using Glitter Glue and Body Wash (NOT Messy!!)

2 Ingredient Homemade Play Dough

2 Ingredient Homemade Puffy Paint