Silky, Stretchy, Conditioner & Cornstarch Play Dough

My children and I recently tried out another two-ingredient play dough recipe that I want to share with you. An inexpensive project (in the states,) it was played with for a good thirty minutes and began drying out after about an hour.

A few notes:

(1) The most important piece of advice I can give is to MEASURE the CONDITIONER and CORNSTARCH as described below. [Not pictured: We did this project without measuring, and although it was messy fun, it was not really usable as a dough at all.]

(2) I have three children, and this dough was just enough to be used and played with by all three of them. If I had more kids to entertain, I would have had to double the recipe.

(3) This craft is messy and was done with a three-year old, four-year old and eight-year old - all of them had a great time mixing, squishing and getting messy!

Materials & Tools

• one (1) cup scented conditioner (the one shown was on sale for $0.82!)
• two (2) cups cornstarch (less than a dollar, also purchased on sale)
• a large bowl and a measuring cup (very important)

I also used a dollar store plastic table cloth for them to play on.

Mix, Clean Hands & Play

There's really not more to say about doing this craft.

We did this outside because of the powdery nature of cornstarch and happy children. We added the conditioner to the cornstarch, but I don't know if adding them in the other order would make a difference.

See the photos of my kids mixing, and after they washed their hands, they began creating everything from pizza dough, jewelry, to pushing items into the dough to make impressions. My youngest got it stuck to his shirt (that's in the video and it's really cute) and he also buried a little car into the dough.

It probably goes without saying, but the play dough will smell like the conditioner choice. Apparently, in the mind of a three-year old, strawberry-scented conditioner smells like French fries. (Just so you know.)

My four year old made a fossil-like impression using a seashell and although the dough hardens after 24-hours, it's still pretty fragile. (We learned this by getting the stuck car out really easily the next day.)

I also want to mention that the dough reminds me of cold porcelain, which if you are familiar with it also uses cornstarch - but this version is clearly more fragile and will not harden as well as cold porcelain.

The video is for giggles, as it's hard to describe in both photos and words what it's like to play with scented, silky play dough, especially when you're young. It's just about a minute and a half.

Enjoy!