Family, Home School

Kid’s Ivory Soap Microwave Experiment

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Have you seen what you can do with Ivory soap in the microwave?? We tried it the other day and I wanted to share our experience with you.

I found the instructions on Toddler Boredom Busters.

Here’s what we did.

Took a bar of Ivory soap and put it on a microwavable plate.
Then I put it in the microwave for 2 minutes ON HIGH.

We all watched in amazement as the soap grew, and grew, and grew some more.
This is what it looked like when it came out.
This is where I’ll tell you to use a HUGE microwavable bowl instead of a plate because it expanded so much that it made a huge mess inside the microwave. Although, it is soap and cleaned up easily!

It was fluffy, but it felt different than you would expect. I really didn’t know what to expect. Just think of it as a very crumbly cloud.

Then we let my oldest (3) play with it and crumble and “smush” to his heart’s content.
Looks like fun, don’t you think??
 We weren’t done with the fun.

Once everything was crumbled up, I put 1/2 cup water in a bowl with the soap and turned on the electric mixer for a couple of minutes until it was a thick liquid. I probably should have added more water because it was hard to work with (needs to be a little thinner). 

Pay attention to consistency and see what we do next.

Add the soap to zip top bags and then add some food coloring to each bag.
We made blue, yellow and red soap bags.

And we squished and squished and squished the bags until they were mixed.

Then he painted the bathtub.


You can see where it is too thick when he tried to put it on the wall, but he still had lots of fun. Just look at that smile! Happy kid. All for the cost of one bar of Ivory soap!

So the changes next time will be: 
1. use more than one bar of soap  
2. use a large bowl instead of a plate (at least to see if it works better)  
3. use more water when mixing the soap with the electric mixer 

I think this was a great experiment and my little one had so much fun “smushing”, “squishing” and painting.  We will definitely do this again.

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20 Comments

  3. This is so cool! I have 2 granddaughters that just love doing things like this with me & their pawpaw. Will be doing this with them on their next visit. Thanks

  4. That looks really neat. I’m just not sure about the powdery looking mess it makes. I have 4 boys and see this being messy fun!

    1. Karen, the powdery mess isn’t too bad. Just stick it in a bowl with a little water and food coloring and then paint the bathtub! Have fun.

  5. Looks like good messy boy fun..Do you know if other soaps would work with this..and can you mold it? Thanks for the cool idea 🙂

    1. I haven’t tried it with other soaps, Nicole, so I’m not sure how it would work. You really can’t mold it, because it is lighter and fluffier than you think it will be. Have fun with it! 😀

  6. I hadn’t heard of this before. Thanks foe sharing. I love that it is so easy to clean clean up and can provide the kids with bathtub fun.

  8. Wow what a cool idea. My grandson would love doing this. Hes into that kind of stuff right now. It would be an easy clean up for Gramma too LOL Im sure he’d love doing the squishing and painting in the tub , hes quite an artist . I have never head about this before . Thanks for letting us know. : )

  13. I have heard of doing this but I haven’t done it, I was too afraid it would completely explode, but now that I know it actually looks pretty cool I might just have to try it with my two year old!