Thursday, June 7, 2012

Ivory Soap Project



Ivory Soap Disaster Project 

You’ve heard of this right? Well, I guess if you’re not on Pinterest, you might not have. Trust me when I say… Skip it.

There are bunches of fun, super mom blog posts about this little gem of a science project and I have pinned them all. I was so excited to do this with my kids while hanging at Nana’s for the summer and when we finally had a warm~ish day, we went for it! I had no idea what we were in for.  

Here’s a link to the blog we used, but the steps are the same across the board…
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2012/04/kitchen-craft-soap-clouds-and-homemade-kiddie-tub-soaps/ That's her pic. I was too covered in soap to even think of touching my camera for most of this adventure.

Have you ever smelled Ivory soap? Have you ever noticed how you can smell it a mile away on someone who bathed with it yesterday? I have. Why did I think that would be less when you COOK IT? At first it was awesome. The Things, my dad, and I were spellbound watching the bar of soap grow out of itself into this amorphous blob, right up to the point where it hit the sides and door of the microwave! I stopped the cooking and opened the door, at which point we all nearly fell over from the smell! Sneezing, runny noses and watery eyes abound! 

I am way too easy, apparently, so we gathered up the blob, some bowls and food coloring and ran outside. The Things commenced to squishing up the blob. Cooked ivory soap turns into super fine powder when squished up (think stinky confectioner’s sugar). The air on the deck was cloudy, the sneezing and watery eyes continued, and the Things were undeterred. When I couldn’t stand the thought of them breathing in the soap dust or the sound of the sneezing anymore, we decided to put in water and food coloring. Really? 

Before the Green Child.... sorry, I don't have an After.
It was crazy messy. We were trying to make little colored soaps but I put too much water in to make it moldable. It was more like soap soup: brightly colored, smelly, Ivory soap soup, which the kids used to play ‘cake maker’ and pour back and forth between the bowls, plates and the table. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking I can’t adequately describe how awful this was! I am not a neat freak, not by a long shot, but I do try to avoid making huge messes on purpose. I would avoid this particular mess at all costs in the future. My mom’s house still reeks of Ivory soap, the microwave may never be the same and it took an hour or so to rinse all the soap out of the patio rugs. 

I wish I could say these shots capture the ‘aftermath’ of this project. I also wish it hadn’t taken nearly an hour to get to this point...
The only bright spots are that the kids had an absolute blast, and my dad had a remarkably good humor about the whole thing! 

UPDATE: 4 year old Thing 2 just came to me after his nap saying "Mommy, can we please blow up soap in the microwave again someday??"  Oh dear....


Ps....
Some nice chalk time after the disaster project.


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