It's flexible, viscous, and it doesn't do absolutely anything, but, for years, it's
been the favorite toy of kids all around the world.
We are talking about Slime.
It's a classic from the 80s that has become fashionable again thanks to social networks.
Everybody is crazy about making their own Slime and squeeeeeeeze it between their hands
– we've seen tons of videos where people make their own recipe so we are going to try
and show you some simple recipes to make it… let's see what comes out of this… but…
before we start with the DIY… do you know its origin?
Let us tell you!
Slime, as any other viscuous monster, was born as an unsucesful experiment in a laboratory.
In 1943, during WWII, chemists from the US were trying to find a substitute for rubber,
so they didn't have to depend on the imports from Asia.
They came up with the idea of mixing boric acid with silicone oil, and with this mixture
they created a material that was more elastic and watery.
It looked like mucus that wouldn't be useful for anything.
It would have remained as a simple laboratory anecdote if it werent for the businessman
Peter Hodgson, who rapidly spotted the deal.
Easter 1950 was around the corner, and Hodgson hired several students from Yale University
as workforce to fill in plastic eggs with this viscous substance, and called it "Silly
Putty".
He put it on sale and, in 3 days, they had 250.000 orders!
But Slime's success at a world level didn't come until 1976, when the Mattel company released
it as the top toy for the Christmas campaign.
They sold it inside little green plastic containers, with the shape of trash cans, and it became
children's favorite toy.
And the most hated toy for parents and little siblings, the most frequent victims of all
the pranks played with slime.
For almost 15 years, you could find your Slime in any toy store in the world, in different
colors and accompanied by things as pleasant as eyeballs, insects or rubber worms.
Different toy franchises, such as Masters of the Universe, the Ninja Turtles or the
Ghostbusters, included it in their sets, so you could stain all your favorite toys!
It even became a symbol for the tv channel Nickelodeon.
It started with the recurring joke from a show, where they threw a bucket of slime over
those who answered "I don't know.".
But right now, famous people who go to the Kid's Choice Awards know that, getting soaked
with Slime is the greatest honor of all.
This slime's basis was guar gum, a natural pólymer used in other compounds, such as
toohtpaste, so it can have a thick consistency.
Its big problem was that it was very dirty and, if you didn't store it correctly and
got it wet regularly, it ended up drying and losing its elasticity.
By mid-90s, little by little, it stopped being sold and was forgotten.
Until the summer of 2016, when a new fashion arrived.
Suddenly, there were lots of DIY videos on Instagram, where teenagers from Thailand explained
how to make your own Slime.
This tendency continued on Youtube and other networks, and not only with tutorials.
Thousands of people all around the world enjoyed watching videos where people squeezed and
made noises with this viscuous element.
Some of the creators of these videos even started their own business.
Just as the teenager from California, Megan Li, who through her Instagram account "slimeysugar",
hooked thousands of followers, and now has her own brand of products.
Or the Youtuber Karina Garcia, also from California, who turned her tutorials into guide-books
and home test kits to make your own Slime.
.
The Slime fever was a sensation in every sense.
We can find characters and elements based on this substance in videogames such as Minecraft,
Dragon Qüest, Terraria or Slime Rancher.
It also was the protagonist in the big screen, through touching characters such as the legendary
ghost Slimer, from the Ghostbusters, or the Flubber movie from 1997.
Now that we know a Little more about our little viscuous friend, let's not expand on this
and go on with our tutorial.
Learn how to make your own Slime!
Let's start now with the tutorial on how to make Slime.
Are you ready?
We aren't, really, but we are gonna try anyway!
Theoretically, this is very easy to do, and the ingredients very easy to find.
As always, the first thing we have to do when it comes to tutorials, is listing the different
materials, so here it is!
Slime recipe without borax!
In Materials!
We need transparent liquid glue or white glue.
Shaving foam
Contact lenses solution
Food coloring – there are many different colors you can chose from!
And! last but not least, a bowl and a spoon to stir.
- First of all, we fill in the bowl with the white glue.
We used about 150 mililiters.
You are going to need a decent-sized-bowl.
Now it's time to add the food coloring.
We chose purple, a beautiful color.
You need to use more or less color depending on how intense you want it to be.
But usually, a little bit will do.
We stir everything and it starts looking like this.
Looks good, doesn't it?
It's now the turn for the shaving foam.
In theory, this is just to give it some creaminess.
We put a lot of it, letting it cover it all.
And we stir again, carefully, so that everything gets mixed.
We stir and stir, and as the color is still too light, we put a little bit more coloring
so it got more intense.
We have to keep stiring, until we have a uniform dough (DÓU).
Looks like we are not doing too bad!
It's now turn for the contacts solution.
A little drop, and we keep stirring.
We mix it all, carefully….
It looks like it's coming apart a little!
FALSE ALARM… nothing's coming out of this.
We are gonna put some more solution and stir and stir….
NOTHINGGGG
We have seriously tried, but this recipe is a total disaster.
Look at the result, we've been stiring for more than 20 min!
We've been fooled.
We've been tricked, it looked so easy on Youtube… disaster… we are a little sad,
we don't wanna imagine how hard it's gotta be to make galaxy or glitter slime…
Truth is, we thought it would be fun to show you our failure of slime.
But as we dont like to give up, we tried a different recipe which actually worked out!
Are you still with us?
This is for a different kind of slime, its texture more similar to play dough.
The materials we need are Cornflour
Liquid detergent or washing-up liquid A bowl
And a spoon
The first thing you gotta do is mix the cornflour with the soap until it's well disolved.
Stir carefully, as if it were a cake.
As it already has a greenish color, but we still want it to be greener, we are adding
coloring and stirring more and more.
We didn't do this, but you can also add a bit of oil so that the dough is softer.
We let it all stand for a couple of minutes and then keep mixing with our hands, until
it gets stuck in them.
As we wanted a bit more slime, we kept adding cornflour and soap little by little.
And this is the result!
We are actually happy.
The color is beautiful, and even tho it's not really like slime, it's very fun to
play with, and relaxing!
And this is all for today!
Please, if you have slime recipes that work share them through a comment, send them through
Instagram, Twitter of Facebook, wherever you want!
We cant wait to know slime recipes that work!!
We'll be waiting for them!
We'll try them all, promise!
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