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My daughter is obsessed by slime and has been trying to make slime watching youtube videos. We have tried several different recipes all have failed to make a good slime and most have just ended up as a coloured liquid. We haven't tried any recipes with Borax in is this the key. We have tried PVA and Elmers glue also shaving foam, corn starch, contact lense fluid and a few other things.
I am happy to buy something if it is known to work and I feel that the brands of ingredients matters as especially the detergents and glues etc all vary quite a bit.
flour and water, heck your kids could even learn how to make bread.
PVA based slime is just more pointless plastic for landfill
The three key ingredients are
Baking Soda
PVA glue
Bauch+Lomb ReNu contact lens solution, this has the borax/activator
My house is full of the stuff.
Yeah you need Borax to make it properly. We tried everything. It’s prettt nasty stuff though so be careful when allowing your kids near it. I have a huge bucket load of you are anywhere near Gloucestershire. My daughter has moved on from slime now she is in her teens
I made 50 pots of the stuff last weekend for my daughter’s 5th birthday party... worked out pretty well —> https://imgur.com/a/2kPLAKX
At least I’ve had no complaints from parents so far.
I used:
- a big tub of PVA glue
- some ‘slime activator’ (this is the borax stuff)... easily found on amazon.
- a small tub of glow in the dark paint
Had no idea about quantities... I just chucked it all into a big bowl and kept mixing/squishing until it was the right consistency.
It’s weird stuff though... you can mould it like plasticene... stretch it ... snap it like it was solid, bounce it like a rubber ball. Only issue is that I think this stuff is still going to be around in exactly the same form in a thousand years.
PVA - 250ml
food colouring - 1 drop
bicarbonate soda - 1 teaspoon
eyewash (with boric acid) -add 2 drops from a syringe at a time until consistency is correct.
you can mould it like plasticene… stretch it … snap it
...try and remove it from the carpet, down the back of the radiator, off the sofa. Thank the lord amen my kids are no longer apparently interested. Banned from my house along with some abhorrent 'road building' toy that consisted of pointy gravel bound by slime that could be rolled out like tarmac by a toy road roller. Two fragments of that stuff stuck to the legs of a chair for about 24 hours scratched the shit out of the wooden floor.
Mr Grumpychops
There was recently an outbreak of a mysterious skin rash in a school that had been making slime. Theory is that is is the contact lens solution when combined with the other stuff makes an irritant as a byproduct. Straight borax, available as a powder hasn't showed the same problem.
I like the fact my daughter got into making slime, she spent a lot of time & pocket money on it. Apparently we were one of the last parents to ban it from the house 😎
We found borax to be the best thing - bought a bag off EBay. It’s banned in our house now after screwing up a room with it and us having to redecorate.
Thankfully for us we have just got Momo to worry about now...
I haven't got an answer for a recipe not containing borax but I just thought I'd stick my 2p in regarding chemical safety. I'm an industrial chemist, I work with boron containing materials, primarily boric acid as a raw material. We are putting huge amounts of efforts into removing boron ontaining materials from our products. Several years ago they were reclassified as being carcinogens and reprotoxins. So much so that I have to wear an air fed respirator when handling large quantities.
There is a limit at which it is considered acceptable in a product which is why you get it in eye washes etc. Not my area but I believe it is in there as a biocide (kills living things).
I looked up borax on a standard chemical supplier (Aldrich). It has H360 risk phrase - My damage fertility and cause harm to the unborn child. I'd not be playing with the stuff.
Next on STW - Fidget Spinners!
Was eventually banned in the last school I worked in because a few kids who were making it (with borax I assume) got really bad dermititis/eczema. Along with hands dyed a variety of colours, which just looked weird!