How to Make Fake Snow

The first recipe is one ingredient. Shake a can of shaving foam, hold it over a plastic tub and spray until the tub is heaped over the rim. Do not smooth it down. The peaks collapse on their own once the lid goes on.

Go for a fragrance-free foam if the shop has one. Scented versions work the same way but the whole batch ends up smelling like a barbershop, which ruins the illusion fast. A small tub or a zip-top bag is plenty for one child.

Press the lid down until it clicks shut all the way around, then stand the tub flat in the freezer. The lid stops the foam drying out and stops the freezer smelling of shaving cream.

Maqaroon left hers in for three days and thought it could have used longer. A day gets you soft frozen foam. Three days gets you something crumbly. The longer it sits, the more it breaks into ice crystals instead of scooping like ice cream.

Peel the lid off and dig a hand straight into it. The frozen foam breaks into cold crumbly chunks with a texture somewhere between frozen whipped cream and real snow. It is the only one of the three recipes that is genuinely cold to hold.

Squeeze a handful and it packs into a rough snowball. Throw it quickly, because it starts melting in about a minute. The upside is it leaves nothing sticky on your hands.

The second recipe swaps cold for shelf life. Tip equal parts baking soda and cornstarch into a clean dry tub. Crumble the lumps between your fingers until the powder is loose and even, with no pale streaks running through it.

Nothing in this one melts or evaporates, so a sealed tub keeps for weeks. Two cups of each fills a shallow container to a good playing depth.

Add water a few drops at a time and stir it through with a spoon after every addition. You need far less than feels right. Stop the second a squeezed handful clumps instead of running through your fingers.

Overshoot and the cornstarch turns into oobleck, a slimy goo that firms up when you press it and runs when you let go. Maqaroon hit that and had to pour in a lot more of both powders to bring it back.

Grab a handful and press it hard between both palms. This batch holds a shape well enough to roll snowballs or fill a mold, and the pressed shape keeps for a minute or two before the edges start shedding.

Be honest about how it looks. The texture is sandy, closer to damp breadcrumbs than to snow, and the color leans cream rather than white. It is the least convincing of the three to look at and the easiest to keep around.

Here is the recipe worth making. Pour a thick layer of baking soda into a tub, enough to fill it a few inches deep, then spray shaving foam back and forth across the top.

There is no measuring in this one. Keep adding foam in passes until the powder is damp all the way through and nothing dry is left in the corners. You will get through more baking soda than you expect, so buy the big box.

Push your fingers down through the mix and fold it over until the last of the dry powder disappears. It turns bright white and crystalline rather than crumbly, and it comes out cold in your hand even though it never went near the freezer.

Squeeze a handful. It should hold a clean snowball with a smooth surface. Left uncovered the foam slowly evaporates, so spray in a bit more and remix if the batch goes powdery after a few days.

Line the tubs up and put a hand in each one. Frozen foam feels the closest to real snow and is the only cold option, but it is gone within the hour. The baking soda and cornstarch mix lasts the longest and looks the least like snow.

Baking soda and shaving foam won for Maqaroon and it is easy to see why. It is the whitest, it is the easiest to make, it needs no measuring, and it rolls snowballs without falling apart.