For two and a half years now, I’ve been adding to my son’s Potions Kit (think Harry Potter). He loves this thing and plays with it all the time, especially with one of his neighborhood friends. It originally consisted of mostly different colors of glitter, salt, a few interesting-looking and unfamiliar spices, and (my personal favorite) an empty bottle labeled “Unicorn Breath”. Last Christmas I added watered-down food coloring, several samples from Demeter — a perfume company that carries scents like “Old Library” and “Dirt” — and a little tube of citric acid and one of baking soda. Those last two were big hits because they DO THINGS when you put them in a potion together.
Other things I’ve used:
[ul]
[li]shredded white iridescent mylar (Unicorn Hair) [/li][li]milkweed pod fluff (Phoenix Down)[/li][li]little iridescent plastic cabochons (Dragon Scales)[/li][li]cream of tartar (Base)[/li][/ul]
Today is my son’s 8th birthday and I’m still putting together the next refill. I have a batch of samples from I Hate Perfume (similar to Demeter) on the way. Can you think of anything else I can put in a little plastic bottle, put a parchment label on, and present as an ingredient for magic? Must be kid safe and shelf stable; bonus point if it’s a household item or cheaply/easily obtainable; two bonus points if it doesn’t have to be strained out before a superannuated potion is dispatched down the drain; super max bonus points if it actually does stuff; honorable mention if it can be labeled in such a way as to appeal to both appeal to eight-year-old boys AND somehow evoke a Harry Potteresqueness, but don’t bother suggesting Unicorn Farts because I am already all over that one.
Oooh, maybe not the whole/fresh version (shelf stability issues), but we have this newfangled powdered kind that would work great! Let’s see, that’s a base point for the suggestion, one bonus for household/easy to get, two bonus for don’t have to strain for the drain (Total: 4) and an honorable mention as it will appeal to the kid (stinky!) AND they have vampires in the Wizarding World. Bravo!
So not sure this works in a “potion kit” as you need a fair bit of it and it’s not super cheap, but you can make “snow” or “dirt” out of anything fatty (ie, chocolate) using Tapioca Maltodextrin. There’s some cool videos on YouTube about how it works - this one shows chocolate.
For what it’s worth, she claims that you need a food processor, but I see plenty of other videos where people just stir it up in a bowl.
I like that idea, though I can’t toss $18 on one ingredient—BUT you made me remember I still have some xanthan powder from a DIY cosmetics project I never finished, whichh should do something similar. So I’ll give half credit for this one—full credit if you can help me think up a good label! Wanna try?
For the liquid smoke, just label it liquid smoke. To a kid that thinks of smoke as gaseous, that’ll seem magical enough.
And I was just about to suggest the cabbage pH indicator. It’ll also work with cream of tartar, lemon juice, and cola (acids) and with chalk (base). Plus, to various degrees, plenty of other substances.
Crushed up denture cleaner tablets. It’s fun to watch them foam up when added to water. Could be labelled Mer-people detector.
ETA add a bit of blue glitter.
Aha. This particular kid has already had a few off-brand, pretty disappointing crystal-growing kits, so I think I’ll pass on the Magic Rocks. They’re also more of a stand-alone than a combinable ingredient. But you did make me think of Pop Rocks, which will bring awesome explosive goodness to any water-based potion, which will be FANTASTIC, so honorable mention for you!
:eek: This. Is. Perfect. Perfecter than perfect. Exactly the sort of I thing I dared to hope the Dope would help me find! One million [/dr.evil] points for you!
