You know what question Kate and I get a lot? “How do you girls do it it all??” Our schedules are full, just as many of yours are, and it comes with the constant struggle of balancing Mom-life with work-life. And like most other Mothers out there, when it comes down to it and one has to take priority, the Mom gig wins- no contest. If something has to fall through the cracks it’s not Mom thing; it’s usually the doing-laundry, cleaning-bathrooms, or showering-before-noon thing. So to answer the question, how do we do it all? Ha! We don’t! Those of you joining us at TOFW get to hear all about how we don’t do it all. In fact, most times sometimes we barely keep it together! The past few weeks have felt like that for me. I’ve been traveling a lot, and working on some huge projects (we finished our book!), so when I got home the other day after spending the weekend in PA (SO much fun- thank you East Coasters for a great time!) the last thing I wanted to do was pull out my big camera and cook. And then edit photos. And then write a big recipe post for today. What I did want to do? Play with my kids. Be goofy, be silly, be loud and crazy and do whatever they wanted to do. I asked them what they wanted to do, and lucky for me (and you) they picked something that I thought would actually be fun to share with you! So ironically, my intentions of turning off my blog brain back-fired, but it worked out in the end. I got to play with my kids, and you get a fun kitchen craft. Or something to entertain friends at the office when you’re tired of working. Since I had no intentions of making a big ol’ photography project out of this fun little activity, I just snapped some quick photos on my Phone and edited them right on my phone too, with the Thumba app. Come next Monday I’ll have my brain fully functioning again and I’ll bust out my big camera have an amazing recipe for you! Until then, let’s just play 🙂 This is sort of awesome.
We call these “Soap Clouds.” Where are all of our chemical engineers? I need to know why every awesome science project involving soap, hinges on the use of Ivory soap. Thoughts? Are there magical ingredients in there? I’ve always wondered that. I bet whoever came up with the original recipe never expected that so many science experiments would ensue with its use! I think the same thing about Elmer’s glue. Anyway, grab a bar of Ivory soap-yes, only Ivory! It’s cheap, but don’t worry, you can even use it as soap when we’re done here so we’re not being wasteful. So you don’t need to write us lengthy emails about being earth-hating-soap-haters.
Place a piece of waxed paper, parchment, plastic wrap, or paper towel in your microwave. Just don’t use foil, or we’ll have issues on our hands that are much bigger than your next burrito tasting slightly like a fresh mountain spring. This really doesn’t make a mess, so don’t be scared.
Start your microwave for a couple of minutes on high power. You don’t need to let it run that whole length of time, but you can just stop it when you need to. Want to see what happens?? It’s a little hard to see through my microwave door, but check it out (and ignore me when I say you need to turn your microwave turntable off, that’s for if you’re trying to video this experience:))
Ten bonus points for anyone who can reference my children’s ramblings about “the great devourer.”
I don’t know how it does it- but it starts growing! Sometimes the “clouds” are seriously HUGE, and other times they are sort of wimpy. I’ve noticed generally, the fresher the soap (as in the more recent I have purchased it) the bigger the result. We’ve done this a million times and my kids still get a kick out of it.
It looks like it should be foamy and wet, but it’s not. You can actually pick up the whole big chunk.
If you smash it, it will break into pieces and you’ll end up with soap dust everywhere, so be careful with little hands who like to smash things 🙂
It’s the weirdest looking thing. I love how it’s different every time.
Now. You have a giant blob of dried soap fluff and your kids were entertained for a total of 3.5 minutes. That’s a start! Sometimes I let my kids just take the whole darn thing in the bath tub and have at it. It’s one way to make sure they actually get cleaned in there. Or sometimes I hold it up over them in the tub and let it “snow” by smashing it and letting it sprinkle down like little snow flakes. Or, you can let them make their own little soaps. First, put the fluff in a bowl and let them do what they’ve probably been trying to do already- smash it to smithereens. It just kind of falls apart, so it’s actually kind of fun. And if it gets all over your counter, take my advice and sweep or vacuum it up first, then wipe it down. Otherwise you’ll end up with a big soapy mess.
Then, either in a bowl with a spoon, or with an electric beater, or in a food processor, like I’m using, add warm water, just until it comes together. Just like pie crust, folks! This is why I love kitchen crafts. To test it, grab some with your hands and hold it in your fist. If it holds together in a ball, it’s ready.
Take the mold-able mixture and let kids press it into cookie cutters. Make sure kids are old enough to know it’s not food, or they are likely to attempt to eat it!
These photos below are from a batch I made a while back, (and photographed with my regular camera) and I let my kids add just a couple of drops of food coloring to make colored soaps. After the soaps are molded, but still wet, you can gently push them out of the molds. Let them sit in a cool, dry place for a few days and soon you will have little soaps to wash (or play!) with. I would only use a small amount of food coloring as to not stain anything!
Funny how my kids are always very interested in getting extra clean when it’s with soap they’ve made themselves.
Now go have some fun with your own kiddos today! Or, just grab some soap and have fun in your office break room at lunch. C’mon- you know you want to.
Reminder: Once again, only use IVORY soap. Lots of people asking this in the comments, or commenting they have a burned mess in their microwave because they didn’t read it earlier in the post! Ivory!
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Questions & Reviews
I can reference ” the great devourer” it is from a show called ninjago , about Lego ninjas that fight evil snakes. My kid watches it all the time.
I love this idea….. I will use this for a Mother’s Day Gift for my First Graders
Hey,…check out Mom’s Got Ink on FB. She stole your photos from this post and didn’t give any credit or links.
I am a preschool teacher and would love to do this in my classroom. Do you know how many individual cookie cutter size soaps are made from one bar of Ivory?
Love your pages, website, everything. I’m a huge fan. I’m going to try the snow, and the IVORY snow thing so here’s my question. Can you sent the soap? I know ivory has a very distinct smell but just wondered if you’d tried scenting it sucessfully yet.
This is cool I will surely love to try it. I love trying things to make me feel younger and this will surely be.
wonderfully Interesting! Loved your description and words!
could you cover the whole thing in molding rubber and then cast it with another material (like plaster or so)? THAT would be cool! Is it stable enough for this? XXX!
For all you people that are asking if it HAS to be Dial the answer is YES i used some cheap soap i found around my house and i left it in the microwave for about 1 minute when i looked at the microwave and it was smoking like crazy. And it stunk and for like 2 hours when all were stuck with the horrible smell of burnt avocado soap. I turned black so use DIAL!!!!!!!
apparently I am doing something wrong or the soap has to be fresh. the bar popped a little in the middle and that was it. Glad I did it before trying it at camp. BUMMER PROJECT!
It’s too bad you have so many ads on your site. I’ve been redirected to a blank page several dozens of times trying to read this content. When the ad finally redirected to an actual ad, imagine my surprise at seeing one for Trojan Condoms. My granddaughter was sitting here with me while tried to learn about these soap clouds.
Not happy.
THANKS for this easy and cheap recipe. i am going to use this for a birthday party. You saved me a lot of money. Abby
does it have to be ivory soap or can it be dove
Great Idea! We did it three times this morning, molding the soap into a silicone pan with mini hearts. They’re drying right now. I used this website to create little cards with instructions, added a picture of Elsa, and called it “Elsa’s Magic Snow.”
The great devourer is the giant snake from Ningago. This looks like lots of fun thank you.
Hello,
I came across this great activity. It will be interesting to see what kids write for their hypothesis when I ask them what they think will happen when I put it in the microwave!!! I am sure many will say, If the soap is put in the microwave, then it will melt create bubbles.
Hi, loved the cloud, made it, it was enjoyed by all. We, the silly adults, then wanted to know what would happen if we nuked Dove soap. So, we cut it in half, put it in a bowl and nuked it. Well, it produced noxious fumes and just melted.
I am sure it was noted by someone, but the principle behind this soap cloud is the same as popcorn. Air and moisture are trapped in the soap and when you heat it up, they expand. This just fluffs it up but does not affect it chemically, unlike Dove.
if you wanted natural dyes, you can use coffee, juice from berries, annatto seeds, wine, anything you eat that has color. However, the soap’s pH I pretty high, so anything red will probably turn blue or grey.
I got the reference.
If you use food coloring does it “stain” skin when usef as soap?
I haven’t read thru all comments but does the food coloring really work or is there another option. I’m worried about turning hands or bodies different colors 🙂
This looks great but can you tell me is there an equivalent soap to ‘ivory’ in the UK please….and what on earth made you put soap in the microwave in the first place, lol
I make home made laundry detergent and I do this with the ivory soap and fels naptha(spelling) because you either have to grate the soap or microwave it and crush it into small pieces. Now when I make my homemade detergent I can start out by letting the kids have fun watching it grow in the microwave and then they can crumble it up for me. I will do 2 bars so they have one bar to make the individual colored soaps with.
Ivory soap does indeed work the best but Lever 2000 and Dial work almost as good. Irish Spring, Coast, Safeguard, and Fels-Naphtha laundry soap work too if that’s all you have. Lava and Zest are disappointing, and Olay is just pitiful. But whatever you do, don’t use something like a 4000 Flushes toilet cake, it will smoke A LOT and stink up the place. And the toilet cake won’t even expand or melt, I know this from experience.
I just saw this on Pinterest today ~ love the texture of Ivory soap and can’t wait to try this with my little ones, so thank you! And ha ha ~ we are watching Ninjago on Netflix right now 🙂
I tried it today and it was a total. Flop. 🙁 it must have been old, we tried twice, first one burned in the middle ( there was a bigvair bubble) the second only split into 4 pieces lengthwise but I can still pull it apart, I was thinking of crumbling it up and coloring it and making some special floating colored bath bombs just for kids, just for something different, I’m going to see what happens anyway, I will try again with a fresh bar, I had this in my linen closet for who knows how long LoL.
WHERE CAN YOU BUY THIS SOAP IN AUSTRALIA ??? I cant find it anywhere :)?
If you have Lever 2000 or Dial, substitute that, they work almost as well.
btw the Great Devourer is a really big snake that grows with everything he eats…. maybe hes talking about how the soap grows really fast??? 😛 idk 🙂
Saw this on youtube. Kinda amazing how a bathroom soap can expand that huge.
Ninjago!
Sara, you mentioned in the post you hadn’t found the science behind this yet. here is a link to a site that explains why ivory soap works and others don’t. Just thought you might like to know. it also has tons of other cool experiments to try. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/soap-souffle hope this helps.