CLEVELAND — If you’re like me, you’re wondering how you can keep the kids busy, engaged and learning while school is out for the next three weeks (or more).
So, let’s get our hands dirty...or I guess, with this one, technically even cleaner.
For about $18 at my local craft store, I picked up a soap making kit for kids. It included a two different soap bases, some coloring and a cucumber melon scent. And since I already have lavender essential oil, I figured I could also make a “grown up” soap while we were at it.
Starting out was easy! Melt the soap base in the microwave in a bowl. The directions will tell you to do this in 30 second intervals so it melts evenly.
I gave each kid a plastic bowl of their own and poured half of the mixture in each.
The coloring is a lot like food coloring. It came in primary colors, so my girls had fun mixing them to make their favorites (we are big purple and pink fans in our house). We put a few drops in the melted soap base, along with two drops of the scent.
Once it was all mixed together, we poured it into the mold that came with the kit.
An hour later, they had soap!
It used to be a struggle to get them to wash their hands or scrub up in the bath. But now they love it and I’m happy they are (hopefully) staying germ free.
If you don’t want to buy a kit, you can buy all the ingredients separately. Here’s what you need:
- Soap base (glycerin, shea, goats milk, whatever you like and it usually comes in 2 lb blocks)
- Essential oil
- Soap mold
- Microwave safe bowls
- Soap colorant (if you want)
- Cut the soap base into 1 or 2 inch chunks with a sharp knife
- Heat up the soap base in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals. Or if you prefer a stove top, make sure it’s on a low setting
- Once it’s melted, pour it into a separate bowl to mix in color and scent.
- Add a few droplets of colorant
- Add 2 or 3 drops of essential oil (there are recipes and combinations online)
- Pour into the soap mold and let it sit for an hour until it hardens.
- Once it’s cooled down, pop out of the soap mold and scrub away!
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