By: Retha Nesmith, Certified Aromatherapist
Last year for Easter I did a couple posts on some fun homemade Easter gifts for your children. One of them was homemade playdough. Well, this year I researched it a bit more and found a few recipes I want to share. I only tried one of these recipes myself but thought the different playdough recipes could be fun to experiment with. I love to add essential oils and food coloring to mine to make them more fun for the kids. Some of my favorite essential oils to use are Calming the Child, Lavender, and Mandarin.
Rubbery Playdough
- 2 cups baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups water**
- 1 cup cornstarch
- food coloring (optional)
- essential oils (optional)
Mix with a fork until smooth. Boil over medium heat until thick. Spoon onto plate or wax paper. Knead the food coloring and essential oils in the playdough until thoroughly mixed.
Just Like Real Playdough
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup water**
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon powder alum
- 1/2 cup salt
- food coloring (optional)
- essential oils (optional)
Mix all dry ingredients. Add oil and water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until reaching the consistency of mashed potatoes. Remove from heat and add food coloring and essential oils. Work in by kneading the playdough.
Oatmeal Playdough
- 1 cup flour
- 2 cups oatmeal
- 1 cup water**
- Cornmeal (optional)
- food coloring (optional)
- essential oils (optional)
Gradually add water to flour and oatmeal in a bowl. Add food coloring and essential oils and knead until mixed. (This playdough is sticky. Add the cornmeal for the consistency of your choice.)
Kool-Aid Playdough
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups flour
- 2 cups boiling water with 1 package of kool-aid (any flavor)**
- 3 tablespoons corn oil
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1 tablespoon alum
- essential oils (optional)
Mix ingredients and knead with flour (may take up to 1 extra cup). Use more if the dough draws moisture in high humidity. Keeps well, has a nice fragrance and is very colorful and very flexible.
My Original Playdough Recipe
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons vinegar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 cup water**
- food coloring (optional)
- essential oils (optional)
**If you choose not to use a preservative you will need to store it in the fridge. Optiphen plus is a preservative which reduces the instance of bacterial growth in water-based products. We recommend that a preservative is used in any water-based products that you make at home. This is a great choice since it contains no parabens, no formaldehyde, and are not formaldehyde contributors.
Combine all dry ingredients, in a medium saucepan and add water & coconut oil to mix while stirring. Put the saucepan on the burner, use Low heat and cook slowly while stirring about 4 to 5 minutes. Once the mixture forms into a dough ball, let cool slightly and knead essential oils into the dough for a couple of minutes. Mine was a little sticky at first but the longer I kneaded it, the more perfect the texture became! Allow to cool all the way before allowing children to play with it.
This would be fun to do for St. Patrick’s Day with your children. I’m sure they would love to help you make playdough. Here are some fun things you can do once the playdough is made:
