spa.jpgFor Christmas, I got Mika Scientific Explorer’s Spa Science Chemistry Kit, a kit that lets you make a bunch of beauty products: oatmeal masks & soaps, bath fizzies & perfurmed salts. Mika was sort of interested and Camila enjoyed it very much, and I liked it too. Making those things is not too far from cooking, a matter of mixing things together, so I can get into it.
I decided to try other kits, so I’d have activities to do with the kids, and I bought Life of the Party Lip Balm & Lotion Kit. That wasn’t as fun, as all you do is melt the lipbalm solution and then add coloring and perfume, or just add color & perfume to the pre-made lotion. We have a lot of lip balm & lotion around, and it entertained Mika for a while, but it wasn’t worth the $21 price tag (though I bought it at Michael’s with one of their weekly 40% off one item coupons). It just wasn’t that fun.
lotion.jpgYesterday, Michael had a 50% off one item coupon (good only yesterday and today), so I decided to go and buy another kit. I settled on Life of the Party Soap Designs Kit because it seemed the most fun of the different soap kits they had there. This kit consists of a block of transparent soap, a block of white soap, one perfume, three colors (the box said yellow, green and red, but I actually got burgundy, red and green), a flimsy plastic mold with 4 shapes (rectangular, square, circle and rectangle) and 4 soap cutters (big heart, small heart, leaf and flower). These are made of metal, and are pretty thick and sharp – also small enough to fit within small to standard size soap bars. In other words, they are smaller than the cookie cutters you may have at home.
What you do is melt the transparent soap, add color & perfume, let it set, cut with the cookie cutters. Place the cut figures on the mold, then melt some white soap and pour it on the mold with the figures. Then you let it set.
I like that there are a few steps on making the soap – it feels like you are really making it – and you get to express some of your creativity in decorating the soap (though we followed the pictures from the box, not too successfully). So all in all this was a good kit and a good value at $12 after tax & the coupon.
I wonder if I could convince Mike to go back to Michael’s and get another kit today (with another 50% off coupon). I’m thinking of this one: Cool Kids Soap Kit
Even though it’s not comestics, I’m also thinking of getting Scientific Explorer’s Mind Blowing Science Kit for Young Scientists, because they have it at Michael’s and I have the coupon.