Squishy Baff - Make Me Laff!!

My boys have wanted Squishy Baff since we saw it on tv several months ago.  Thankfully, Santa brought them some "Baff" to try out!  Thankfully?  Hmmm..... To be determined...

Squishy Baff promises to "turn ordinary water into colorful goo, and then back again."  Sounds simple, right?  

 

Well, it WAS simple to get the bath all gooey!  The kids LOVED it!  One package makes two baths.  But the amount of water needed to make one bath was so little, I said, "What the hay - we'll do both at once!"  

 Look at this goo! 

 It is the consistency of that gel-substance that sucks up all of the liquid in diapers.  The kids had a ball dipping the goo with ladles, cups, and bowls.  Pretty neat stuff!  

I have to say, I was a little worried about even trying this goo stuff, because I've had some pipe issues lately.  Let's just say, I didn't realize that the toilet and the bath tub were so closely related.  They were sharing quite a bit for awhile (ick, right?).  Since the boys were chomping at the bit to try this stuff, and it was their last night of Christmas break, I put those worries about the pipes in the back of my mind and carried on with the fun experiment.  

About 30-45 minutes into playtime, I hear the drain GLUB GLUB a few times!  ACK!  The drain cover got knocked off of the drain!  I figured play time was about over - so it was time to "deactivate" the goo - turning it back to water.  Right?

I sprinkled both packets of the goo dissolver into the tub and swished it around.  It didn't de-goo very much :(  Oh no!  What to do!?  I grabbed a stainer from the kitchen and began dipping the thick remaining goo out of the blue water!  


 
When the goo chunks became smaller, I slipped a piece of netting inside the strainer to grab more of the smaller chunks.  Took a little time, but I was not comfortable letting that go down the drain with the recent pipe problems.  












I gathered the equivalent of about 2 gallons of thick gunk from the water.










It really is neat stuff - but what am I to do with this left-over goo? 

 AND - there was still soupy goo in the tub!  I did a little googling, and found "Gelli Baff" - which is apparently the product name in Great Britain.  On this website, they list the goo-dissolver as regular table-salt.  So I decided to do a little experiment of my own.  I put a glob of goo in two bowls.  In one, I added about a tablespoon of salt - the other I added about 2 tablespoons of baking soda (then about a quarter cup of vinegar to see if it would bubble the goo out of the water).

t The bowl on the left got the salt, the bowl on the right got the baking soda/vinegar treatment.  The salt did a great job of dissolving the contents.  The baking soda also did well, but not AS well.  But because I had more baking soda than salt, I dumped about half of the box into the remaining goo in the tub!  FINALLY - I felt comfortable draining the tub!  

 In all, it was a fun experience for the kids.  Will I rush out to buy more Squishy Baff any time soon?  Eh, probably not.  

Gallon of goo, anyone?