Letting your kids be creative is a good tactic. It helps them discover artistic talents and grow into healthier, more confident humans. But cleaning up their scrawl off the walls is enough to make anyone regret their parenting. The fun but affordable solution? DIY bath crayons!
These homemade soaps make bath time far more playful. And because the crayons are soap-based, it’s easier to clean them off your surfaces. And you can get the kids involved in making their bath crayons too! So let’s look at 31 DIY bath crayon recipes your children will love.
1. WhatsUpMom’s DIY Bath Crayons
Homemade bath crayons are among the easiest DIY projects your kids can do. All you need is soap molds, glycerine soap, and coloring. Soap coloring is easier to wash off than food coloring, so that’s what we recommend. Melt the glycerine soap in the microwave, add some color to it, pour it into a soap mold or cookie cutter, freeze it solid, and you’re done!
2. Parenting Chaos DIY Bath Crayons
Soap blocks make a great base for DIY bath crayons. Break off a chunk and melt it in a saucepan of boiling water. You can also melt the soap in the microwave. Your kids will use these in the bath where they’ll partially thaw, so you can add essential oils to the mix. This recipe uses cedarwood and lavender. Now add color, pour into molds, and freeze the soap.
3. Desert Cloud DIY Soap Crayons
You can use any grated bar of soap as a basis for soap crayons. Just be sure it’s plain, white, unscented, and has no intrinsic dye since that could bleed into the bath. You also want to be sure your soap coloring (or food dye) is strong enough to actually draw when the kids press it on the tile. If the dye is too mild, there’s be no color transfer, making the drawings invisible.
4. DIY Natural Soap Crayons
Powdered pigment works better for DIY bath crayons because you can thoroughly work them into the soap. And if you’re living an organic lifestyle, it’s possible to find natural soap colors that won’t compromise your ethics. To make the crayons, grate a white bar of soap, mix it with boiling water to melt it, add the powder oxide pigments, then mold it into soap shapes.
5. Farmington DIY Bath Crayons
You can make DIY bath crayons in any shape, from ice cubes and cupcakes to candy molds and elongated pencils. This recipe use star-shaped cookie cutters or a starry plastic mold. The soap base here comes from a shea butter bar melted in the microwave. Add your coloring to the melted mixture and pour it into your chosen crayon molds then freeze.
6. DIY Non-Toxic Bath Crayons
Melt-and-Pour Soap makes a good soap base for DIY bath crayons. It’s often translucent and glycerine-based, but this recipe uses an organic version that has 10% pure goat milk, oats, coconut, safflower, and yes, glycerine. Goat milk has more fats and less lactose than cow milk, so it’s a richer moisturizer. Melt this with grapeseed oil as a carrier and add the dye.
7. Bramble Berry DIY Bath Crayons
DIY projects are a fun way to bond with kids, so they should be easy to do and make maximum mess. But you can also try this more curated version if your kids are more precocious and prone to keeping their clothes clean. The melt-and-pour soap is dyed, scented with orange soda pop fragrance, then poured into twist tubes for added elegance.
8. Jamonkey DIY Bath Crayons
You want the color in your DIY bath crayons to be strong enough that it’s visible on bathroom tiles. But not so strong that it won’t wash off. You also want to watch that the kids don’t draw on wood or fabric – that’s tougher to clean than tiles! For this recipe, grate a white bar of soap, add hot water to make it malleable, then add your colorant and shape it.
9. Alison’s DIY Bath Crayons
You want your DIY bath crayons to be bulky because they can get slippery. So they should be big enough for kids to hold them easily or they’ll keep slipping into the bathwater and dissolve too soon. This recipe uses heart-shaped molds that are just the right size for your toddler’s palms. The translucent soap and liquid coloring give the crayons a pretty glow.
10. Soccer Mom’s DIY Bath Crayons
You know those old bits of soap that get leftover? You probably just throw them out when they get small, mushy, and sticky. Here’s how you can upcycle them – collect them in a jar, boil them in hot water, add soap dye or food dye, and pour them into candy molds to form DIY bath crayons. Any white or light-colored bar soap bits will do, but preferably unscented.
11. Mommy Hacks Quick DIY Bath Crayons
Melt-and-pour soap is mostly glycerine, which is largely derived from vegetable oil. It melts in less than a minute if you pop it in the microwave. And it holds color well. But it also solidifies fast so once you add the gel color and mix it in, quickly pour your DIY bath crayons into molds and freeze them. After setting, they stay solid at room temperature.
12. Soap Queen’s Melt-and-Pour Bath Crayons
Bramble Berry’s branded Lab Colours are perfect for DIY bath crayons because they’re so concentrated. Measure the amount of melt-and-pour soap you need then double that figure to know how much dye you’ll need. For example, for 10 ounces of soap, use 20ml undiluted Lab Colours. This recipe scents the bath crayons with white tea + ginger fragrance oil.
13. London’s DIY Bath Crayons
The tricky thing with DIY bath crayons is color proportion. Use too little and your kids’ bathroom drawings won’t be visible. Use too much and the tub will stain. So you can try different types, recipes, brands, and amounts of dye until you find what works for you. Grate a plain bar of soap and mix in some hot water to make it mushy before adding the color.
14. Just a Pinch DIY Soap Crayons
Grating soap can get messy and tear-inducing. Especially if you forget and touch your nose or eyes while grating! So if you’d like to skip the inadvertent crying, try using soap flakes as a base. You can mix these with just enough water to make a molding-clay consistency. You can then shape it into a crayon and add color before drying the DIY bath crayons, ready for use.
15. DIY Bath Paints for Kids
Some kids like to doodle and scribble on plain surfaces. Others would rather whip paintbrushes back and forth. If your little ones fall in the latter category, they’ll love these homemade bath paints. And the no-tears baby wash soap base makes it so easy to rinse off! Mix some food coloring or soap coloring into the soap, add corn starch, and you’re done!
16. Young Living DIY Bath Crayons
Kids bath crayons don’t need essential oils. But as they hit the water, some of the infused oils will leach into the water and make it smell amazing. And this can enrich your children’s bath experience. Lavender is especially helpful because it’ll make them drowsy. You can also try the SleepyIze blend for kids. For this recipe, the base is glycerine soap.
17. Allie’s DIY Bath Crayons
Melt-and-pour glycerine soap hardens in minutes. And because you want your soap crayons to be pigmented enough to draw, you need a lot of color. Use an ice cube tray or candy mold, and add three to four drops of liquid or gel coloring directly into each mold. This keeps the concentration intense. You’ll have to work fast though, you only have a minute!
18. Feels Like Home DIY Bath Crayons
You kids may have to press their DIY bath crayons really hard onto the bathroom wall. But kids are mastering their motor skills, so they naturally force their hands as they write. It’s why they tear through so many coloring books. So they won’t notice (or mind) the extra effort. Use warm water to mash your grated ivory soap before adding the food colorant.
19. Sensational DIY Bath Crayons
Looking for DIY ideas for your kids? Try the show Creative Galaxy, which this mom mentions here. It’s also where she found the DIY bath crayon recipe that she uses in the second half of her video. The video uses grated soap flakes mashed with hot water before adding color. Be sure the soap mush isn’t too wet otherwise the soap crayons won’t solidify.
20. Instructables DIY Bath Crayons
If you’re familiar with DIY bath products, you know food oils like coconut, olive, or almond are popular ingredients. And you can carry those concepts into DIY bath crayons too. This recipe uses grated almond soap as the base. But even if the soap is scented, choose a white or clear bar that shows the crayon colors better. This batch of crayons is set in candy molds.
21. Diply’s DIY Bath Crayons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Vfx1LjaUA
DIY bath crayons can be glassy or milky, depending on the soap base you use. Translucent or clear soap bases will give you a glossy appearance while opaque soap bases result in denser-looking crayons. This recipe uses a thick white melt-and-pour soap. Try soap dye and food dye to see which results you prefer. Soap dyes are less likely to stain the tub than food dyes.
22. Super Simple DIY Soap Crayons
Before you start working on your DIY bath crayons, set yourself the right expectations. Soap crayons don’t draw as clearly as wax crayons. But they’re far easier to wash off. That said, using the right soap base and colorant will keep your kids’ bathroom images bolder and more vivid. Try shea butter melt-and-pour soap with Life of the Party branded coloring.
23. Lou Lou Girls DIY Bath Crayons
Kids are funny. They might enjoy the process of making DIY bath crayons more than the actual drawing! So get them involved in the project and they’ll be all played out before they do a single doodle. These sisters are making their soap crayons with just three ingredients – an old bar of plain soap (grated), warm water to mash the soap, and food coloring to dye it.
24. Teach Beside Me DIY Bath Crayons
Older kids (age 5 or 6) might still enjoy bath crayons. But they may want theirs more artistic (and shaped like actual crayons rather than kiddie toys). So you can try leftover packaging from wafers or chocolate fingers as crayon molds. You can also scent the crayons for older kids – orange and lemon oils are used here, but experiment with your kids’ favorite scent.
25. Neha’s DIY Bath Crayons
With DIY bath crayons, drawing on the wall (and not getting in trouble for it!) is only half the fun. Your kids may get more pleasure from mixing different colored crayons to make bath toys like flowers or butterflies. Also, make sure they only use these soap crayons on tile surfaces – your wood, wallpaper, glass, plastic, or painted surfaces will be harder to rinse!
26. Freebie Finding Mom’s DIY Bath Crayons
Lego molds make a delightfully playful shape for DIY bath crayons. You could use Lego brick molds or even Lego man molds. For this recipe, use mica powder in various colors and glycerine melt-and-pour soap. Essential oils are optional. If your kids bathe before bed, a dash of lavender or SleepyIze will make your bedtime routine far less dramatic for everyone.
27. Regalo Baby DIY Bath Crayons
You want your children to fully enjoy their DIY bath crayons. So choose colors and scents they like. For kids that love pastels, get a white, milky soap base. If they prefer glitter and glamour, use a clear soap base and add some sparkly mica to the soap coloring. Ice cube trays make great molding tools. Add drops of color to each soap cube individually.
28. Starry Night DIY Bath Crayons
These two-tone soap crayons will delight your kids. And the points of the stars offer effective finger grips for little hands as they scrawl on the bathroom walls. Use a milky white melt-and-pour soap base. For pre-bedtime baths, use lavender oil, but for morning baths, use a more wakeful oil like eucalyptus. Layer colors in your soap molds to create the soap stars.
29. DIY Upcycled Crayon Bath Soaps
It’s frustrating trying to wipe wax crayon drawings off your walls. And DIY bath crayon drawings might be too pale to impress your kids. So why not merge them and make things better for everyone? Collect all those broken crayons and melt them down to form new crayons – but not for the tub! Make melt-and-pour bath crayons using those same molds.
30. Imperial Sugar DIY Bath Crayons
At some point, your kids will put soap and crayons in their mouths. So DIY bath crayons – a happy merger of both – will definitely end up on tongues and noses. One, make the soap crayons too big to fit in any crevices. Two, use brown sugar in the recipe to avoid digestive trouble. This recipe has melt-and-pour soap, food coloring, vitamin E oil, and brown cane sugar.
31. Daddy’s DIY Bath Crayons
Everybody knows dads do it different. So we’re closing our list with this dad’s take on the DIY soap crayon craze. Glycerine melt-and-pour soap can bubble and burn in the microwave. And it’ll take ages to rinse out those soap suds. So melt the soap in 10 to 20-second spurts. If your soap crayons won’t write, you probably need more concentrated coloring options …
What are your favorite DIY bath crayons? Show us how you make them in the comments!
