Pepper floats all over a bowl of water. Your friend touches the middle and nothing happens at all. You touch the same spot, and the pepper races away to the edges as if it's frightened of you.
🌟 Level 1: Apprentice
⏱ 2 minutes to learn
🧪 Potions
🎒 Ages 5+
Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.
🚫 A potion is for looking at, not for drinking.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Dab a little dish soap on one fingertip and keep that finger tucked out of the way until it's your turn.
Magic tricks aren't superpowers, and that's what makes them amazing. A magician is a performer who uses skill, science and storytelling to make the impossible look like it just happened in front of you. The wonder you feel is completely real, though.
How do magicians do their tricks?
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.
The Pepper and Soap Trick for kids: the whole trick
Pepper floats all over a bowl of water. Your friend touches the middle and nothing happens at all. You touch the same spot, and the pepper races away to the edges as if it's frightened of you. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 5 to 9 (grades K–3rd), takes 2 minutes to learn, and needs 4 things you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
There's a tiny bit of dish soap on your fingertip. Soap breaks the stretchy skin on top of the water, and the skin that's left pulls the pepper outwards.
What you need
A shallow bowl
Water
Ground black pepper
A drop of dish soap
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Dab a little dish soap on one fingertip and keep that finger tucked out of the way until it's your turn.
How to do it
Fill the bowl with the water and shake the pepper all over the top.
Ask your friend to touch the middle of the water with one finger.
Nothing happens. Say: pepper isn't frightened of just anybody.
Touch the middle with the finger that has the dish soap on it.
Whoosh. The pepper rushes to the edges. Take your finger out slowly.
Magic words to say
“Pepper, pepper, run away! There's a magician here today! Go on. Try it yourself first. It won't listen to you.”
Pro tips
Let them go first, every time. The trick is really in the difference between their finger and yours.
Once there's soap in the water it will never work again, so pour it out and start with fresh water for each show.
Do this one over a sink or with a towel down.
If something goes wrong
If nothing happens, you need more soap on your finger and fresher water. Say "this pepper is very brave" while you refill the bowl.
Safety notes
A potion is for looking at, not for drinking.
A bit messy.
No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.
The science behind the trick
Water has surface tension: the top layer behaves like a stretchy skin, and the pepper is light enough to sit on it. Soap weakens that skin where you touch it, so the stronger skin further out wins the tug-of-war and drags the pepper to the rim.
What kind of trick is this?
🌈 Transformation. Something changes into something else. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.
The skill it teaches:Patter: what you say. A trick is a story, not a thing that happens. Perform it and it counts towards the Kitchen Alchemist badge.
Questions about the pepper and soap trick
Is magic real?
Magic tricks aren't superpowers, and that's what makes them amazing. A magician is a performer who uses skill, science and storytelling to make the impossible look like it just happened in front of you. The wonder you feel is completely real, though.
How do magicians do their tricks?
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.