A Vegetable Oil And Water Spring Sensory Bottle -Easy Mixing Fun

Today I am showing you how I am making a Spring Sensory Bottle with Vegetable Oil. Ok vegetable oil usually looks a bit yellow. I’ll experiment a bit to see if I can change that.

Table Of Contents

Materials You’ll Need:
Why It Works (For the Curious Minds!)
More To Read:

Materials You’ll Need:

Materials for Spring Sensory Bottle Spread out, oil water glitter food color and stars

A clear plastic bottle (I love using smoothie bottles, they are smaller, perfect for my toddlers little hands and less heavy. Also needs less material. Many people recommend VOSS bottles. I think they are better for older kids.)
Vegetable oil (sunflower oil, canola oil, or light olive oil)
Water
Food coloring (preferably liquid-based for easy mixing, but I used a paste and a chopstick to mix it with the water)
Fine glitter (I used silver.)
Tiny plastic butterflies and stars (optional but magical!)
Electricians Tape (to seal the lid securely) or glue gun.

I already did a lot of sensory bottle ideas. This one turned out really beautiful. Check out my post on sound sensory bottles if you want to skip the liquid.

Assembling the Sensory Bottle

Below you’ll find how I tried to make the oil less yellow (it didn’t work well, so you can start right away). Let’s build our spring sensory bottle:

Fill the bottle halfway with water Add a few drops of food coloring (green, pastel pink, blue, or yellow for a spring feel). Shake it up! (Or as I did mix it in a separate cup before you pour it. (I’ve done both and both worked).

Here I am mixing in the food color. I used around half a tea spoon. I added one drop blue oil color, but it didn’t mix with the oil. Instead it mixed with the water too.

Slowly pour in the vegetable oil until the bottle is nearly full. Watch as the oil and water stay separate—it’s like magic! Below there is an explanation why it works.

Sprinkle in your glitter, the butterflies and the stars. The oil slows their movement, making them swirl and dance beautifully.

Adding Small Stars to the Spring Sensory Bottle

Adding plastic butterflies to the Spring Sensory Bottle

Seal the lid tightly. Use a hot glue gun and a green electricians tape to prevent any messy accidents.

Shake, flip, and watch! Tilt the bottle back and forth and watch the shimmering storm of glitter and color.

Why It Works (For the Curious Minds!)

Oil and water don’t mix! The oil stays on top because it’s less dense than water.
Glitter moves differently in oil vs. water. Fine glitter floats slowly in oil, creating a dreamy effect.
Food coloring only mixes with water. That’s why you get the cool separation of color.

Here is a whole post on how it works.

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My Color Experiments For This Spring Sensory Bottle:

Vegetable oil is often yellow-tinted, which might not give us the fresh, crisp spring aesthetic we’re aiming for. But can we fix it? Well I tried:

Mixing it with a Lighter Oil – If you have mineral oil or baby oil, mixing a bit of it with the vegetable oil can dilute the yellow tint. This worked a bit.

The Sunlight Method – Leaving the sunflower oil in direct sunlight for a day helped lighten it slightly! I was worried it would go rancid so I didn’t wait longer.

Adding a Tiny Bit of Blue Coloring – Didn’t work I tried a blue oil color, but it didn’t dissolve in the oil, instead it dissolved in the water. You could try an oil based food color.