homemade all natural bathtub crayons

While I'm fairly certain Ethan and I are both 99.9% healthy by now, I'm waiting it out a couple of days just to err on the safe side and not share our germy germs with the outside world. It doesn't take much for us to both go a little stir crazy when stuck at home, and, well, this isn't our first rodeo being stuck at home sick this year so we've about reached the height of our cabin fever. Ethan was coloring at the dining room table and asked if he could take a bubblebath when he finished his drawing. I obliged and then randomly had an epiphany: tub crayons!

On occasion, I let Ethan pick some bathtub paint or bathtub crayons out of the dollar spot at Target. This is a rarity because the ingredient list on these items makes my skin crawl a little bit, but he loves to take his art to the tub whenever he can. I surveyed my cabinets for a few minutes and threw some things together to see if I could create a more natural bathtub crayon void of unknown chemicals and toxins and shaving cream and other gunk.

I'm not sure who was more surprised, Ethan or myself, when the end result actually worked out -- and worked out great! Because I was winging this, I don't have the best measurements in place but if it's easy enough for me to wing it, it's not too easy to mess up. I do have a ton of empty lipbalm tubes because last year I decided I was going to start making lipbalms (spoiler alert: I didn't end up doing this) but if you don't have any lipbalm tubes (which are super cheap online and are great additions to our crafting), some silicone baking cups would probably work just as well, too. I liked having these in tubes because Ethan could twist up for more crayon when needed.

Here's what you need:
- Castile soap (I used Dr. Bronner's)
- Coconut oil
- Vitamin E oil (optional)
- Shea butter (optional)
- Essential oil (I used Auracacia's lemon oil for a bright, happy scent)
- Food coloring (the least natural part of the whole thing, I know)

To make:
- Add 1/4 tsp shea butter (optional) and 3-4 drops vitamin E oil (optional) in a small jar or glass (I used two baby food jars for this project)
- Add 1 teaspoon castile soap and combine
- Heat some coconut oil (I placed the jar in a pot of simmering water) until it melts to liquid
-Once liquid, add coconut oil to the mixture. Here's where my improvisation and non-exact measurements come in: I poured in enough coconut oil to fill just about half of a baby food jar -- I'd guess around 1/4c.
- If you're using silicone baking cups, this is when you can pour in your oil mixture into cups and stir 2-4 drops of food coloring in to each one. For my tubes, I used a medicine dropper to add 1 teaspoon of the oil mixture to another jar, add 2 drops of food coloring and then suck back up with the dropper to add to a lip balm tube.
- Pop tubes or cups into the 'fridge and let harden for about 45 minutes-an hour.

That's it, and then you're ready to go!

The best part of these is when Ethan colored the inside tub walls and inevitably the tub water washed the crayons away, the bath water became more like a luxury spa treatment. When Ethan was ready to get out of the tub, his skin was so soft!