½ cup shaving cream
½ cup corn starch
food colouring
a large, cleanable surface
Mix together equal parts shaving cream and corn starch. (Don't worry about measuring exactly).
Knead it together until it starts to form dough.
Add more corn starch if it's too sticky.
Add more shaving cream if it's too dry.
I put the corn starch right on top of my table on a vinyl table cloth. You might be able to make it in a bowl, instead of putting right on the table? I just think the best part of this activity was for the kids to be able to feel it squishing between their fingers. At least it doesn’t require any cooking, like normal play-dough. So there are no messy pots and pans to clean up.
Add equal parts shaving cream to the corn starch. I just guessed. I didn’t feel like putting shaving cream in my measuring cups, so I just kept on spraying it out until it looked like a good amount.
Squeeze and kneed the mixture until it becomes dough. If it’s too crumbly, add more shaving cream. And if it’s too sticky, add more corn starch. It took some effort trying to find the right amounts of shaving cream and corn starch to get it to stick together.
My girls LOVED this. The texture of the shaving cream with the corn starch is really cool! It becomes silky smooth when you squeeze it.
It took about 5 minutes of kneading before it turned into workable dough. Just play around with it and you’ll get a sense for the amounts of corn starch and shaving cream you’ll need. It took some effort, but eventually it started to stick together into a play-dough-like ball.
I could have washed my hands before I took these pictures, but that might have given you the impression this activity is cleaner than it really is. I don’t want you having any false impressions going into this!
Add a few drops of food colouring to the dough if you like. Or you can just leave it white. It’s totally up to you!
We used Barbasol shaving cream from the dollar store. It worked really well, but wow, was it ever smelly! It was definitely heavily perfumed!