Shaving Cream Sensory Play - Epic, Colorful Fun

One of the things we’re best known for is our epic colored shaving cream sensory play! With two ingredients and a simple setup, this sensory dream is HOURS of fun.

A girl smiles at the camera and holds up two hands covered in purple shaving cream. On the table in front of her are six clear containers, each filled with neon colored shaving cream in yellow, green, purple, red, orange, and blue.

Shaving cream sensory play is EPIC

When our preschool is in session, we buy shaving cream in bulk.

I’m talking, reaching my arm into the shelf of shaving cream bottles and pushing out all of the bottles that I can.

You get used to people giving you weird looks as you happily push your cart with 7.8 million bottles of shaving cream in it. #teacherlife

👐🏼 Related: Shaving cream and paint also make for amazing finger painting!

A girl smiles at he table in front of her where there are six clear containers, each filled with neon colored shaving cream in yellow, green, purple, red, orange, and blue.

Kids of all ages love shaving cream sensory play

One of the best things about this sensory experience is that it’s not just “a little kid thing.”

Know who loves playing with shaving cream? Preschoolers and elementary kids and adults.

It’s the perfect multi-age experience, and it’s especially fantastic for families with mixed-aged kids! You try it; you’ll immediately see the draw!

👐🏼 Looking for more shaving cream activities? These are fantastic:

On a table, six clear containers are filled with shaving cream and each has a squirt of paint but the paint is not mixed in yet.

Materials

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Shaving cream – you can get shaving cream online, but we typically stock up at WalMart or the Dollar Tree
Paint – any kid’s paint works, just not acrylic
Large spoon or spatula
Plastic containers – I prefer clear, but use what you have on hand

A young girl sticks her tongue out while she works hard at squeezing shaving cream from a bottle into a clear, plastic container on the table in front of her. Behind her are green grass and pink flowers in pots.

How to set up epic shaving cream sensory play for preschoolers

Making colored shaving cream is just as fun as using it!

MIX – Fill your plastic containers about 1/3 of the way full with shaving cream. Add a squirt of paint onto the shaving cream, then mix with your large spoon or spatula until the shaving cream is colorful.

PLAY – Once you have beautiful colored shaving cream, it’s playtime! You can invite your kids to use their hands to mix, scoop, and play, or you can add additional materials from around your home or classroom.

Fun additional materials to consider adding:

Small bowls
Small spoons
Ladles
Colanders
Plastic potato mashers
Silicone cupcake liners
Pom poms
Plastic animal figurines
Foam blocks

Six containers of colorful shaving cream sit on a table in colors yellow, green, purple, pink, orange, and blue. Inside of each container are small plastic animal figurines.

How do you clean shaving cream sensory play up?

Shaving cream is used year-round in our preschool, and clean-up is far less intimidating than it may look!

Typically, we fill a larger bucket with water and invite the kids to rinse off the materials they used. Then, we spray the materials with a quick hose rinse if needed.

Shaving cream comes off very quickly with water, and even on our days with our biggest messes where it seemed like EVERY toy at our school was covered in shaving cream, clean up took minutes.

Cleaning up is part of the activity, too. Kids love cleaning the materials used!

A plastic giraffe toy and plastic zebra toy sit in a clear container filled with red/pink shaving cream.

Is shaving cream a sensory activity?

It absolutely is!

When kids are playing with shaving cream, they

Hear the sound of it coming out of the bottle
Smell its very distinct scent
Feel the wet, foamy goodness
See the colors interacting

Shaving cream is an excellent material for sensory play, but like with any activity, make sure to have adequate adult supervision as you don’t want kids to ingest any part of this (or get it in their eyes).