A sprinkle of glitter and soft colors makes this amazingly soft fairy dough come to life! Whip up a super soft playdough recipe with just two ingredients in minutes. This fairy dough is ultra-soft and smooth for the perfect sensory experience. We love simple homemade playdough!
Fairy Dough Recipe
This is a fun super soft playdough recipe, check out our no-cook playdough recipe or our popular cooked playdough recipe for easy alternatives!
You Will Need:
- 1 cup of hair conditioner
- 2 cups of cornstarch
- Mixing bowl and spoon
- Food coloring
- Glitter (optional)
- Playdough accessories
The ratio for this recipe is 1 part hair conditioner to two parts cornstarch. We used one cup and two cups, but you can adjust the recipe as desired. Inexpensive hair conditioner works perfectly. You can easily add food coloring as desired or leave plain. Some conditioners are naturally tinted.
Instructions:
STEP 1: Start by adding the hair conditioner to a bowl.
TIP: Keep in mind that conditioners vary in viscosity or thickness, so you may need to adjust the amount of cornstarch used.
STEP 2: If you want to add a few drops of food coloring, now’s the time! Light pastel color works great for our fairy playdough.
STEP 3: Now add the cornstarch to thicken your fairy dough and give it that awesome playdough texture. You can start out mixing the conditioner and cornstarch with a spoon, but eventually, you will have to switch to kneading it with your hands.
STEP 4: Time to get the hands in the bowl and knead your playdough. Once the mixture is fully incorporated, you can remove the soft fairy playdough and place on a clean surface to finish kneading into a silky smooth ball!
Mixing Tip: The beauty of this 2 ingredient playdough recipe is that the measurements are loose. If the mixture isn’t firm enough, add a pinch of cornstarch. But if the mixture is too dry, add a glob of conditioner. Find your favorite consistency! Make it an experiment!
Don’t forget to sprinkle on some fairy dust (glitter)!
Fun Things To Do With Your Fairy Dough
Make Fairy Garden Creations
Provide small natural items like pebbles, leaves, flowers, twigs, and mini fairy figurines. Kids can shape fairy homes, magical trees, and cozy nests, creating their own enchanted garden. Add small mirrors as “fairy ponds” for extra sparkle.
Create Imprints
Use nature items like shells, leaves, flowers, or even textured toys to press patterns into the fairy dough. Watch the surprise and delight as beautiful textures and shapes appear like magic!
Color Mixing Adventures
Make batches of fairy dough in different colors. Let kids squish, stretch, and blend them together. They’ll love seeing new colors form, with a dash of glitter for extra fairy dust magic.
Check out all more fun and easy color mixing activities for preschoolers!
Sensory Footprints
Roll the dough flat and gently press doll or animal figurines’ feet into it to leave tiny footprints. Toddlers love discovering the patterns left behind, sparking curiosity about animals, fairies, and more.
Build a Fairy Village
Roll the dough into tiny houses, toadstools, fairy bridges, and pathways. Add beads, buttons, or gems as decorations. This encourages imaginative storytelling as kids create homes for their fairy friends.
Glittery Treasure Hunt
Provide small objects like beads, mini gems, or buttons. Kids will love squishing, poking, and digging the gems into the dough – like a magical excavation!
Free Printable Flower Playdough Mat
Make playdough flowers with a batch of fairy dough and our printable playdough mats.
Fairy Dough Tips for Success:
- Add essential oils like lavender (if safe and supervised) for a calming sensory experience.
- Store the dough in an airtight container to keep it soft and ready for the next magical adventure.
- Always supervise toddlers during play to prevent accidental tasting, especially if glitter or small items are involved.
This cornstarch playdough has a unique texture and is a bit different than our traditional playdough recipes. Because it does not have preservatives in it, it will not last long.
Generally, you would store homemade playdough in an airtight container in the fridge. Similarly you can still store this conditioner playdough in an airtight container or zip-top bag, but it won’t be as much fun to play with again and again. Instead you may just want to whip up a fresh batch to play with!
Use Fairy Dough For Early Learning
- Turn your playdough into a counting activity by adding dice! Roll and place the correct amount of items on a piece of rolled out playdough! Use buttons, beads, or small toys for counting.
- Make it a game and the first one to 20, wins!
- Add number playdough stamps and pair with the items to practice numbers 1-10 or 1-20.
- Make an alphabet letter activity tray with playdough.
- Mix small items into the playdough and add a pair of kid-safe tweezers or tongs for a hide and seek game!
- Make a sorting activity. Roll out the soft playdough into different shapes. Next, mix up the items and have the kids sort them by color, size or type to the different playdough shapes using the tweezers!
- Use kid-safe playdough scissors to practice cutting playdough into pieces.
Find more helpful resources for early learning here.
More Fun Recipes To Try
- Make our favorite no cook playdough without cornstarch
- Cloud dough
- Kinetic sand
- Dye rice for sensory play
- Make chocolate playdough
- Playdough with powdered sugar is a favorite
Printable Playdough Project Pack
With tons of easy-to-print recipes and exclusive playdough mats that encourage early learning, look forward to a year of sensory-rich play!
- Homemade Playdough Recipes including traditional, no-cook, super soft, and even taste-safe ideas!
- Playdough Mats with an Early Learning Theme, including space, seasons, volcanos, bees, ABCs, 123s, shapes, weather, insects, plants, and more!
- Playdough tips, tricks, and ideas!
