2 Ingredient Silky Smooth Playdough

Ready for a quick and amazing playdough recipe? This no cook playdough requires only two ingredients and is ready to play in less than 1 minute. The best part is the way this playdough feels. It’s like a soft cloud and is so soothing on the hands. It is luxurious, fun, so easy to make, and will keep kids busy playing and exploring!

SUPER SOFT EASY PLAYDOUGH RECIPE

Disclaimer: This article may contain commission or affiliate links. As an Amazon Influencer I earn from qualifying purchases.
Not seeing our videos? Turn off any adblockers to ensure our video feed can be seen. Or visit our YouTube channel to see if the video has been uploaded there. We are slowly uploading our archives. Thanks!

We love cornstarch! It is this magical little ingredient that turns into wonderful play and exploratory experiences with very little work. I always keep cornstarch around. It is the perfect base for creating projects to solve any “I’m bored” complaints.

Check out this video of our 2 Ingredient Playdough in Action!

Can’t see the video? Turn off your ad blocker, it may be preventing viewing of the video.

Many years ago we created Playdough Bubble Bath. It was really easy to make and boy my kids LOVED it! At the time I was struggling with some reluctance around bath time, but that Playdough Bubble Bath made my kids excited for bath time! Plus it was so fast and easy to make, and much cheaper than buying stuff at the store.

Lately handwashing extensively has lead to some redness and dry hands. So the idea of playing with playdough made us hesitate a bit.

Then we had the idea to create a playdough that would sooth the hands and provide a luxurious, silky sensory experience.

We have experienced this before with both Moon Dough and Oobleck. The importance of sensory experiences for everyone can not be underestimated. It is calming and helps relieve stress and anxiety. It is also an essential component of mindfulness.

Plus, with this recipe… it is just plain fun!

This recipe is part playdough, part slime, part Oobleck. I will dig into all the incredible properties of this simple recipe in a bit.

But, the best part is how fast and easy this playdough is to make. We have made traditional playdough many times, cooking it on the stove, stirring and kneading. It makes great playdough, but sometimes you need something quick and easy.

Plus this is something kids can make themselves!

For this particular recipe we decided to do an ocean theme which ties in really nicely with our Ocean Moon Dough and our Layers of the Ocean Soap (perfect for all the handwashing we have been doing!).

Supplies

2 cups cornstarch
1 cup hair conditioner
5 drops blue food coloring
Mixing bowl
Spoon
Foam ocean animals
Blue decorative glass gems

For other themes, simply replace the colour and decorative pieces to suit your themes.

Directions

Add the cornstarch to the mixing bowl.

Pour the hair conditioner into the bowl.

Add food coloring.

Stir the cornstarch, hair conditioner, and food coloring together.

Mix well.

Finish mixing by kneading the dough with your hands well until you get a soft, silky, texture.

When you are ready to play with the dough, add the foam ocean animals and glass gems to the dough.

Store dough in an airtight container when you are finished playing with it.

---

Pro Tip!

You can replace the conditioner with hand lotion, just make sure you use a very liquid hand lotion! Certain types won’t work, especially thicker hand creams, but if you find the right lotion it can be incredibly soothing to children’s hands!

---

Slime, Oobleck or Playdough?

We have called this playdough, but you may notice that it is VERY stretchy. Much strechier than regular playdough. In many ways it has the stretch of slime. In fact, this could be used as another alternative to our favourite Cornstarch Slime recipes.

You will also notice that it has a bit of the characteristics of Oobleck, a non-Newtonian Fluid. Under pressure it will be solid, and when you remove pressure it will flow.

Now it doesn’t behave completely like regular Oobleck, it has a bit more structure, but it can definitely show some of that cool response to pressure that we love with Oobleck.

How much you see these traits seems to depend on the conditioner you use. We hypothesized that the reason for this is due to the water content in the conditioner. Some conditioners have more water than others. We know from our previous studies of non-Newtonian Fluids that water is a key ingredient.

Future Investigations

In the future we can dig into this further by trying the playdough recipe with a number of different conditioners and seeing how it changes the final playdough.

We are also excited to test this recipe in the same way we tested our Oobleck recipes, by changing out the ingredients. We hypothesize that potato starch may take this recipe to the next level in silkiness, just like it did with our Oobleck and Moon Dough!

This is one recipe you will want to save and have ready for anytime you hear: I’m bored!

More Sensory Science