As promised here is a fun recipe for bathtub paint that will use the soap we made from yesterdays post found here. As I mentioned earlier I could not throw the soap away, so I had to come up with something that would use this wonderful fluffy, crumbly soap. I came across this web page that has a number of Homemade Paint Recipes, the one that caught my eye was for fluffy soap paint. With a few changes, it became a wonderful fluffy bathtub paint.
To make your own Bathtub Paint, you will need:
- A bar of microwaved Ivory Soap crumbled
- Boiling water
- Blender (I tried a hand mixer, but it just made bubbles and foam. Not what we are going for.)
- Food coloring
- Plastic Ziploc bags
Place 1 cup of crumbled soap into the blender and add a small amount of boiling water. If you add to much water at one time it will bubble, you are going for a creamy texture. Pulse slowly, add more water as needed. Repeat until all the soap bar crumbles are a yogurt like texture.
Pour into 6 separate containers. The kids were in charge of adding the food coloring and mixing. You will notice that a couple of colors are brighter than others. I added a bit more hot water at this point to get a thinner texture that we could pipe like icing.
Spoon into 6 ziploc bags and cut a small hole in the tip of one corner. This will act like a piping bag, great practice for finger mobility for kiddos. You could also leave the paint in the containers and paint with paint brushes or fingers.
Create a beautiful master piece that can be washed away. The kids had SO much fun piping, painting, squishing, and drawing with the paint. After your little one is all done, simply drain the tub, turn on the shower and give your little ones small buckets and wash cloths to clean up the mess. When the kids were all done cleaning, you would not have know that there was a colorful master piece hidden behind the shower curtain only a few minutes before. Love it!
Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.
Fun!!!
This is so fun I want to try it! I wonder how I can adapt this for a classroom setting…?
I would love to hear how it works in the classroom. You could use it similar to playing with shaving cream on a tray. Also the recipe I adapted it from was for paint, finger painting could be fun.
You could have it be an outdoor warm day one and use a shower curtain on the ground, or a tarp maybe?
Thanks for the great idea! We will have to try this!
How is cool is all of this? We’re doing it this week! Thanks for the idea. I am new to your blog and now following you. I’m sure I’ll be back for more ideas!
Oh, we have to do this! The tub paints i have bought in the past stained, but I bet these would be great! We tried the ivory soap thing at my mom’s recently after seeing it in a science book, and we were wondering how to use the soap after. So cool!
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Does it stain your tub? I just did the Ivory soap experiment and it was a huge success. I’ve wanted to let the kids paint the tub for a while, but my husband gets ansy at the thought of having the tub walls “painted” or marked on in any fashion.
Thanks for stopping by. We have white tile with white grout and had no problems with it staining. I gave the girls a couple of cloths and they cleaned it all off with no problem. Hope this helps.
We did this, totally forgot to use the blender and hand mixed it. I will say that I should have and WILL use the blender next time. It got hard super fast. But thats okay, my 4 1/2 year old added water bit by bit to keep it moist.
Thanks for the great “activity” as we call it in our house!
Thanks so much for the fun ideas. Just got finished turning the soap into a cloud and my daughter really enjoyed watching it and then crumbling it up. I want to make this paint-just wondered though, will it get hard again? Wondering if I should wait and make it tomorrow before bath time instead of making it now and waiting till morning to paint.
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Great idea! My kids (even the 19-year-old) was fixated by the exploding soap in the microwave. We didn’t have a blender…we recently bought a Vitamixer after our blender broke and there was no way I was putting soap in that machine, so our only option was the Kitchen Aid. It worked great!! Thanks for the great idea
I teach preschool and wondered what would happen if you painted with this on paper so kids could keep the finished product. I would assume it would dry hard? Great ideas!
Love this idea!! I am going to have to try this with my kids!! Thanks!
FOr use in the classroom, have the kids wear smocks and “paint” the table tops or purchase a couple of those thin, cheap, plastic table cloths used for parties and tape ‘em down and let the kids get creative. Then there is no messy clean-up, just roll or wad and toss. However, it is an excellent way to clean those grimy tables in the spring! We did something like this with pre-k with shaving foam.
Do you have to use Ivory soap or can it be another, similar bar soap?
I’m sure that you can make the bathtub paint from any soap bar, although I have only used Ivory. The reason we used an Ivory bar was because we had exploded it in the microwave. Exploding soap is one of my kids favorite experiments. The exploding soap experiment will only work with Ivory soap.
We used jergens bar soap in white, and it exploded just fine! Haven’t tried tub painting with it yet though!
Another way to do this activity in the classroom would be to use the tables and desks. Since it doesn’t stain the kids would be able to decorate their desks and when they are done they would be washing away all of the germs that collects on those desks. They get to have fun and you get germ free desks.
What a great recipe! Thanks… going to pass this on to other moms and preschool teachers I work with!
What a fabulous idea! I saw it on Pinterest and am going to try this with my little ones. Thanks!
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I just bought bath crayons (munchkin brand $5) and my 2 year old loved it but i have ivory soap under my sink i have never used but now i will put it to use! Can this be stored and if so how long before it goes ucky?
How much fun is this?!?! So cool!
Will the food coloring stain a fiberglass tub?
We have a cast iron bathtub, and we had no problem. It also washed right off of the ceramic tiles. I think that it helps that the paint is made up of mostly soap. However, if you are worried about it do a test in a small area. Hope this helps.
Hi I came across your blog by Pinterest, your kids must be so happy! very cool ideas! Thanks
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You are so creative with such great ideas!! We want to do the fluffy bathtub paint project after “exploding” some Ivory soap but have a question about timing. How soon after making the soap paint does it have to be used? Doesn’t seem like it will stay fluid enough to use as paint if we wait until another day to use it. And, if not, what’s the best way to get it back to the right consistency? Again, thank you for all your great ideas!
I’m not sure how long it will last. There is never any left over to save after the kids get done playing. I have however exploded the bar of ivory soap and let that sit on the counter a few days before making the soap and it works great! I would love to hear how it goes.
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Hi, I was wondering whether the Ivory soap made the kids’ eyes burn if it accidentally went in? I have a 2 year old so just wanted to make sure before I tried this.
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Yay! I’m so excited to make this paint….we’ll do the exploding soap idea first. We don’t have tile showers….so I am nervous about the food coloring, but I’m thinking I’ll just have them paint on the table…or, I was thinking of giving them each a cookie sheet.
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I so wish I had seen this a few weeks ago. We did the exploding soap bar experiment and then I just dumped all the crumbled up soap over his head like snow and let him play in the bathtub later that night. lol He keeps asking to do it again, and I just went and bought a pack of Ivory soap bars this week for him, so I think we’ll be making some of this one day soon!!!
Love it! Thank you for posting this. We used our first bar of exploding soap in laundry detergent. I love having a way to use more.
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I love this! E has been on a bathtub painting binge lately, and I try to give her a slightly different experience each time.
I tried this with one cup of the crumbled ivory soap and only put in a little amount of boiling water, I never got the yogurt look and it was only enough for one ziplock sandwich bag, could you tell me what I might of done wrong? (I ended up putting the whole bar of crumbled soap in and only filled one bag) Please help your pictures look so cool!!!
thank you for this great idea! i am looking for some fun bathtime activities and this one looks like a winner
I made this with the soap shavings from my son’s first “whittling” as he received his Cub Scout whittling chip. I added tempra paint powder to make deep bright colors (and also gave it a bit more substance). We used it on a piece of black plastic table covering posted on an outside wall. The bright colors showed up fantastically and even when the artwork dried in the sun it washed off with a sponge and water quite easily. The kids LOVED this!