Kids love to painting. Moms don’t love to clean up the mess. What if you could combine painting with cleaning the bathtub?
The answer is
bath tub paint!
You can make it thick and use it as finger paint, or you can dilute it and use it with paintbrushes. This paint is washable, does not stain and will help you clean your tub.
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup of Dish Detergent
- 1/2 Cup of Cornstarch
- 1/2 Cup of boiling water
- Food Coloring (liquid kind is best)
I used antibacterial, scented hand soap. Know whatever soap you use, your kids will coat themselves with it “ so be sure to pick something that won’t cause a reaction.
Directions:
Mix the cornstarch into the hot water until it is dissolved and the consistency is pasty.
Add the soap and mix until there are no chunks.
Add food coloring.
Store in an airtight container.
The paint may separate slightly when stored, stir before use. Test the paint on a patch of your tub to ensure that your food coloring does not stain “ and have fun!
More Paint Fun From Kids Activities Blog
Let’s learn
how to make paint!
This post was inspired by Katey at Having Fun at Home. She has super fun activities to keep your kids occupied – in and out of the tub! Here is more painting play in the bathtub from Katey.
I just “stumbled” upon this post – what a great idea!
It didn’t stain our tub, but I’d test it in a small area to be sure. Oh, and FYI, it only keeps for a few weeks! We dug out the leftovers a few days ago and discovered they had spoiled. Looks like we’ll be making more soon.
I just stumbled on this page today, fantastic idea!!!
This didn’t stain your tile or grout???
Our bath/shower has white tile that looks exactly like yours pictured above. My son LOVES to paint or draw all the time, so I thought this would be a great project. Thanks for the idea.
I don’t know, we used Popsicle sticks to mix it. There were some lumps, but they were absorbed as my three year old stirred them. It gels up as it sets so you have to re-stir prior to each use. Sorry yours was so lumpy.
Okay, I made this today & had a problem – I’m sure I just did something wrong. HOW do you mix the cornstarch & water? I thought that it was a good paste (I used a fork to mix them), but then when I put the dish soap in, it was still lumpy & nothing I could do got the lumps out – I finally put it in my Kitchen Aid out of desperation & ended up with whipped soap suds with lumps of cornstarch stuff in it! My son loved painting with it anyway, but I was just wondering – what do you use to mix yours – what did I do wrong??? 🙂
try mixing the cornstarch in just a bit of cold water to get it dissolved then pour it into the hot. The minute the starch hits the hot water it’s going to clump no matter what so I tried the cold water trick first then added it to the hot and had no problems. Took just a bit more cornstarch to get the consistency I wanted but it was great.
Also tried it with flour too cause I didn’t have enough cornstarch for a second color. that worked too. Not as good, but my daughter couldn’t tell the difference.
have fun!!
Marisa, I wish this was good for bad skin conditions. Only testing it will tell. With my youngest daughter she doesn’t use soap (any) and doesn’t get to paint the tub as she has excema. We are hoping she grows out of it, but till she does we avoid soaps as well. Have you tried maybe fingerpainting the sink as a way to test his reaction and let him explore without irritating his whole body?
Try using Cetaphil it’s very mild.
What about kids that have skin conditions? My step son stay with us on the weekends from time to time and he LOVES bath time. Kid’s a fish lol. This would be awesome but he has vitiligo (like MJ had) it’s mostly just a lack of color in patches but we try to be uber careful too. His lighter tones get burnt by the sun easily and tend to have rashes more often than on the darker skin.
You could use baby shampoo to make a no-tears version
Love this idea.
This is SOOOOO cool. I am totally trying it at home. We bought some bathtub paint once and the colors were so faint the boys lost interest in it quickly.