Soap Clouds

posted on: Sunday, August 19, 2012


Soap clouds in the bath beats store bought bubble baths any day. All you need is Ivory soap, a microwave, some food coloring (actually the food coloring is optional), and a Ph.D in science to explain to your kids how this actually works.

Seriously, how do you go from this

 to this?


I mean, I know you just nuke it for 30 seconds but what's the science behind it?

I'm calling this a craft instead of a science project because I can't explain to the kids the chemical properties inside an Ivory soap bar that makes this even possible.

So, HORRAY[!] for kitchen crafts.

Back in April Our Best Bites posted a massive soap cloud on their blog which I bookmarked for future projects. Back in April I was living in the jungle without Ivory soap and definitely without a microwave. We also didn't have a bath tub.

Now we have all of those things again so soap cloud making is possible.

I love the look of the plain white cloud, but my kids wanted color. Also, I didn't want our soap cloud to be as big as the one from Our Best Bites so I cut up the Ivory soap into 4 pieces and made 4 different clouds.


Then I mixed 2 drops of blue food coloring in a bowl with 2 teaspoons of water.


Enzo dyed the outside of his soap in the food coloring mixture


and then we nuked it in the microwave, on top of a paper towel, for 30 seconds.


And a pretty white cloud tinted with blue was born.

Maria on the other hand wanted more colors on her cloud. So I microwaved her cloud for 10 seconds, added a drop of food coloring, then microwaved for another 10 seconds, added another drop of food coloring, and kept on doing this until we had a cloud with 5 different colors on it.

Which one do you like best, the all white, the blue, or the colorful one?


Some questions I had before making soap clouds,

What is the texture like? 
I know it looks all soft and fluffy but it's not. It's solid but also crumbly, so unless you're planning on playing with these in the bath or in a kiddie pool I wouldn't recommend making it.

When it comes out of the microwave is it super hot?
I was worried about this because I knew the kids (and I) would be impatient wanting to touch it right away, but it was fine. It was warm for a couple of seconds but not hot. Granted my microwave isn't that powerful so if you try this at home touch it first before your kids grab it so you can make sure it's not hot.

Will your food taste like Ivory soap when you microwave it?
No. I thought it would but it was fine. The microwave smelled like Ivory soap for a little while but right after I gave the kids a bath we went back up to the kitchen to have dinner and I microwaved some food and it did not taste like Ivory soap. *sigh of relief*

So then what do you do with it?



Oh you know, you play! You put your kids in the bath and you let then go at it. The food coloring in the soap makes the bath water colorful and pretty. And because your kids are playing with soap it's hard to go wrong.

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