Natural play dough for kids

Today my daughter and I had fun making natural play dough. It was surprisingly easy, cheap and a pleasant sensory experiences – not only by touching a soft and warm mixture but also smelling refreshing essential oils that we decided to add. I often use them for my cleaning products like my natural toilet cleaning bombs, but this time I wanted to test them for other uses.

Benefits of natural play dough

• It’s been some time since we run out of a shop bought play dough. And this was an easy and creative replacement during a lockdown confinement.
• I’m currently trying to avoid buying toys in plastic containers. Making a natural play dough at home is an easy solution with no waste involved.
• The recipe I found is very cheap and the required ingredients very common. I didn’t need to buy anything to make it.
• I wanted to try my new essentials oils as a way of adding a pleasant smell to the game, while enjoying the reinvigorating effect of lavender, peppermint and lemon flavours I used.

Ingredients

Method

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a pot.
2. Slowly add water and oil, and mix with a whisk.
3. Start warming your mixture on low heat while stirring fast until it thickens. Careful as it can easily stick to the bottom.
4. Allow the mixture to cool down and start kneading it adding more flour if it’s too sticky.
5. When it’s cool enough add a few drops of chosen essential oil. I divided my mix into three balls and we made three different options: lavender, lemon and peppermint.
6. Add your food colouring and knead again. The one I used was a powder one and didn’t give enough of a colour. I’m going to try a different one next time.

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Essentials oils benefits

There are over 90 types of essential oils, each with unique smell and health benefits. I used the three below ones and enjoyed different benefits each of them bring.

Lavender

It has calming properties and relives stress.

Lemon

It’s a known mood booster.

Peppermint

It is great as an energy pick me up.

And the results of natural play dough?

We had so much fun! The mix ended up too sticky so we added flour. Nevertheless we made houses, snow men and spiders. Mess was less sticky than a shop bough play dough, hands easy to clean and the entire house smelled lovely. Now your turn!