How to Make Beautiful (Scented!) Shaving Cream Art This Spring

Take your shaving cream art to another level by adding scent!

This spring art activity was so much fun for both my preschoolers and myself. Something tells me your kids are going to have a blast with it too. I especially love the multi-sensory aspect to it.

Of course, I have to warn you. This activity is not for the faint of heart. It will be hands-on. And it very well will get messy. Me, I welcome the messy aspects of teaching young children. What are your feelings on it?

Related: Spring Messy Play Activities

Scented Shaving Cream Art in Preschool

My students and I love trying out different process art techniques, and we also love sensory play. So it seemed like a wonderful idea to combine the two with scented shaving cream art!

It turned out to be tons of messy fun resulting in some beautiful pieces of art.

Materials we used for our spring shaving cream art

Acrylic paint in spring colors
Scented shaving cream & scented shaving gel – we used different floral scents
White construction paper
Small pieces of cardboard
Plastic butter knife

If you aren’t up for using shaving cream, I’d suggest testing this out with whipped cream.

Before we jumped into the art

Before we even started creating our masterpieces, I let the kiddos explore the shaving cream.

It’s just too inviting for little hands to do otherwise! The children spread it all over the table, running their hands through it over and over. A few of them tried to decide which “flower smells” they liked the best.

I would highly recommend you let the kids partake of this exploratory step before getting into the shaving cream art project.

I loved hearing what they had to say during this exploration:

“That does NOT smell like a good flower!”
“Ooooh, it feels all smooshy and gooey!”
“Miss Mary Catherine, it’s just like icing! Lots and lots of icing!”
“I like this flowery smelly one. It smells better. And it looks pinker!”

After about half an hour of thorough shaving cream play, we cleaned up. This involved quite a few paper towels, wipes, and trips to the bathroom to wash up. 🙂 Once that was done, the kids and I started to create our shaving cream art.

Spring shaving cream art directions

To start off, have the kids spread a layer of shaving cream on a finger paint tray or baking sheet.

Next, let the kids add colorful designs to the shaving cream. For this project, we used acrylic paints, but we’ve used liquid watercolors for other such art projects.

We found that making small dots and thin lines worked best for us.

Next up is the marbling! Let the kids use a plastic knife (or fork or toothpick) to create the marbling effect.

I told the students it was like playing connect-the-dots, running the knife in lines and squiggles between the paint designs. This description seemed to work well for them!

Once the design is finished, place a piece of paper on top of the painted shaving cream.

Press down gently to ensure the design transfers to the paper. Carefully remove the paper.

Next up it’s time to remove the shaving cream, which will leave a colorful print behind on the paper.

Using a piece of cardboard as a squeegee, scrape the shaving cream off the paper. The paint design will remain behind.

Tip: I found that using a ruler ended up being easier and less messy for all involved. Feel free to learn from my mistakes.

Of course, now it’s time to ooooh and aaaaah at the beautiful art that’s been created!

Our scented shaving cream art was a huge hit with my students! Many children created more than one piece of art.

We also had fun creating a print, then making a second print from it. We had such a good time that our scented shaving cream art expanded past just one day.

Have you tried any shaving cream art before?

Spring Lesson Plans for Preschool

Save time and jump right into hands-on, multi-sensory learning fun with done-for-you lesson plans. Each of our preschool lesson plan packs come with:

Printable plans (both a one-sheet grid plan and multi-page plans that describe the learning activities)
Whole group ideas
Small group activities
Center time activities
Book suggestions
Related printables (read below the photo for specific printables)
Blank, editable lesson plan outlines in case you want to rearrange a few things on your own!