Sensitive Skin-Friendly Play Dough

My Life with S

Sensitive Skin-Friendly Play Dough

Posted on April 24, 2014

S has the sort of skin that’s sometimes a little sensitive. A while back she had some sort of eczema that eventually covered her whole body. We tried several different creams before we found one that worked. None of them made it any worse, and I had gloriously soft hands from applying it twice a day… but they didn’t solve the problem.

Meanwhile, S loves to play with play dough of any description. I usually make it with corn flour and oil, but the oil can stain her clothes – she’s a bit of a mucky pup, and it tends to get everywhere. Traditional play dough has a lot of salt in it, and can make her hands dry and sore quite quickly – which is not ideal as she doesn’t like to have cream on her hands. I was delighted then, when I found this post on The Imagination Tree, for play dough for sensitive skin.

The basic idea is that you mix up dough using corn flour (the God of play dough ingredients!) and cream – moisturiser, medicated cream, whatever you know works for your child. I’ve no idea why I didn’t think of this before! I mixed ours with Diprobase, because we have tons of it, but it doesn’t work for S. I added some green food colouring, because I know she’s ok with colouring, and set her to playing with it.

I think I added too much cornflour, as it was fairly crumbly – but she enjoyed playing with it any way. She’s not really into rolling out dough for shapes, as much as she is just squishing it up and making a mess any way!

I think next time I make this, I’ll use less corn flour. By the time S had finished playing with it, it had become really crumbly. Also it’s worth noting here that the green on S’s hand in this video is from previous colouring shenanigans, not the play dough!

8 comments

By Vicky Charles

Vicky Charles Vicky

Vicky is a mother, a blogger, a podcaster and a social media trainer. She writes about life as a single mother, parenting and lifestyle type things.

8 Comments

Tara Leinen

April 24, 2014 5:50 pm REPLY

Looks amazing! Thank you for sharing!<br /><br />-Tara<br />www.pookasfamily.com
Salesh Dipak Fernando

April 24, 2014 5:55 pm REPLY

lovely pics and a lovely little post
playathometeacher

January 20, 2015 4:37 pm REPLY

What a great idea. I suffer from eczema and would never have thought of putting medicated cream in the dough - a great way to apply the cream without her really realising! Fab! x playathometeacher recently posted...#playathometuesdays linky #3
playathometeacher

January 20, 2015 4:38 pm REPLY

Thanks for linking up to #playathometuesdays playathometeacher recently posted...#playathometuesdays linky #3
Leandra

January 20, 2015 7:11 pm REPLY

Great idea, I love homemade play dough but you're right, it dry's your hands out so much, I think I might give this a try next time :) Thanks so much for sharing #toddlerapprovedtuesday x
Polly

January 20, 2015 7:20 pm REPLY

What a great idea and one I'll be sure to try out, my little one also suffers with sensitive skin so I'm glad I've found this xxx Polly recently posted...Toddler Activity- Dry Pasta & Cotton Wool Sorting.
Mummy Melton

January 21, 2015 12:47 pm REPLY

this a great idea. My friend's little boy has really sensitive skin, will be sending her to this xx #toddlerapprovedtuesday Mummy Melton recently posted...13 month update
Clare's Little Tots

January 22, 2015 1:25 pm REPLY

Great idea. My own little girl has eczema on her hands and although I haven't tried this playdough method I do wonder if the usual recipe we use makes it any worse. Will be giving this a go thank you #ToddlerApprovedTuesday