For President’s Day yesterday, we decided to take a little bit of our day off to conduct this experiment that I have been hearing so much about. It seems its popularity exploded a few weeks ago when I began noticing through social media, but then also from Steve Spangler – my favorite science guy that has a segment on 9News (my favorite news program out of Denver).

The experiment takes a look at Ivory soap versus other leading bar soaps and reveals the fact that it floats! The other’s do not. So, what happens when you take it to the microwave? Have you ever cooked a marshmallow in the microwave before? It’s a similar phenomenon where the porous inside expands when heated.  

We compared the Ivory Soap to Dove.

You’ll notice that the Dove sank to the bottom of the bowl. Eli was sad about this because the Dove was the soap that he chose as his own.

Here, you’ll see that the Ivory Soap stayed right up there on top of the water.

Why is this? Can you see the porous inside? Sort of…

We placed it on a microwave safe plate and cooked it for two-minutes.

The anticipation was almost too much for Logan as he watched the soap grow bigger and bigger. He ran off into the other room while covering his ears?!

But this is what it looked like when it came out. It appears to be light, fluffy and soft. But it is actually rather rough and hard-but still light weight.

Then we had to have some fun with it. Here comes Mater, exploring some uncharted territory in the wintry Colorado Rockies…

Oh no! It’s not looking so good!

Oh man…now he needs a tow!

Our little Flamenco Dancer is a long way from home…but she sure appears happy about it!

The boys named this one, “Mr. Soap.” Quite fitting I would say!

And here we have a floating Soap-Berg in the bath tub!

A word from the wise (ie. my husband who had to clean it up): He was very sad about the clean up that this required at bath time last night. I was of the assumption that it might just dissolve in the warm water…but he discovered otherwise. If you do this yourself, be sure and just throw it away…the soap became sticky, gooey and “nasty,” he said.

All four of us were intrigued by this experiment, but the most fun for the guys came from putting their toys with it! I would agree.