What Happened When We Put 5 Homemade Slime Recipes to the Test

In search of the ultimate homemade slime formula I experimented with 5 different do-it-yourself slime recipes, from those requiring borax to those requiring only contact lens solution and sand. As an added bonus, I'm disclosing which of the five recipes I tested was my personal favorite.

In this article, I will discuss my experience attempting five different homemade slime recipes.

Hey all A long-awaited post is finally ready, and I couldn't be more thrilled to show it to you. Since way back when I didn't even have a blog, lol Five homemade slime recipes can be quite time-consuming to complete.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by creating my own DIY slime recipe (which I seriously doubt is possible, there have been so many DIY slimes already), I decided to test out five existing recipes and report back on my findings.

My daughter enjoys playing with slime and other messy materials, so this would be a great activity for us to do together. Let's begin immediately, shall we?  

First test: R's class's simple borax slime recipe.

Many people, it seems, are on the lookout for "DIY slime recipes without borax," despite the fact that borax is easy to find and commonly used in many of the recipes. I was sure that we needed to try one of these recipes because of how simple they are. Moreover, there was a large container of borax in the closet.

One of R's teachers responded positively to my announcement that I planned to make slime with her students by offering to send over a recipe for their personal favorite. This is what got me thinking about comparing various kinds.

Here are the ingredients that went into this dish:

• 3/4 cup of water
• Three-quarters of a teaspoon of borax
• To make one liter of glue, combine one and a half cups of water.

The only difficult step of this recipe is the mixing. Borax and water can be combined in the same bowl. Next, in a separate bowl, combine equal parts glue and water. Either bowl can have food coloring added to it.

Following this, combine the contents of the two containers. A slimy texture, as desired, will start to develop. After a certain point, you'll have to start kneading it on the table.

In case you were wondering, borax is a mineral, a salt of boric acid, and a boron compound. The glue's slimy texture is the result of a reaction between the borax and other ingredients.

Conclusions about the Most Popular Homemade Slime Recipe

It was a successful beginning. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't my favorite, either. The slime turned out a little grainy and chunky because I had trouble completely dissolving the borax. Some of the images below will show you what I mean.

Remember that you might not achieve a uniform color if you only add food coloring to one bowl. Roughly the same texture as rubber This is not your typical store-bought slime consistency.

Like this Read the article we wrote after trying five different recipes for homemade playdough.

Second attempt: a homemade sand slime recipe

The sand slime recipe from Smart School House was up next. Check out her blog for a comprehensive guide and size chart. A list of ingredients can be seen below.

Ingredients for this dish include:

• Clear glue
• Sand
• Eye drops for contacts
• Bicarbonate of soda, for baking

This is the first recipe in which I've used contact lens solution, and I'm quite interested in it. How did it function, exactly? That this could be used to create homemade slime was a surprise to whom?

When combined with glue, borax makes for an excellent slime ingredient. I recently found out that boric acid (present as a disinfectant) is a component of contact lens solution. Boron is the elemental basis for boric acid, which is a monobasic Lewis acid of boron.

Boric acid reacts with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in the adhesive to form a polymer chain. These linked polymers This is the consistency of slime. Science The addition of sand makes it more tactile and does not disrupt the reaction between the boric acid and PVA.

What we think of that at-home sand slime recipe

I liked it used common sand because it was already in my toolbox I used blue food coloring and glitter to give my sand the color specified in the tutorial. After that, I combined it with the remaining components. Simple to combine and manipulate.

Even my picky daughter liked this dish. It made her think of Kinetic Sand, another toy she enjoys. This one also kept very well; we put it in a bag and used it multiple times before finally tossing it.

You can see its cool web-like consistency in the image below. There is one caveat, though. Get ready to get your hands dirty Some of the sand does escape the slime and land on the table. (Refer to second image below) To sum up, you should get ready for a little bit more tidying up.

Check out my posts on melting broken crayons in silicone molds, making glittery sensory bottles, and DIY sidewalk paint recipes for more fun kid crafts.

Test #3: Homemade slime using only three common household items

The third recipe we tried was for homemade slime from I Heart Naptime. As simple as possible, please. Visit her blog for a comprehensive how-to, including detailed instructions and sizing information.

Ingredients for this dish include:

• Glue
• Sodium chloride
• Salicylic acid

Before combining everything, we decided to tint the glue with orange and yellow food coloring. Added some glitter because why not?

A verdict on three-ingredient homemade slime

That was just...messy LOL This is the slime to get if your kid isn't afraid to get their hands dirty. However, my daughter was more hesitant. She found it annoying that she had to wash it off her fingers to remove it.

We could have added more saline solution to make everything come together, but the kid wasn't interested anymore, so we didn't. See the uniformity in these examples. Extremely slimy

DIY Fluffy Slime, Round 4 of the Experiments

In our fourth experiment, we put together some DIY fluffy sand slime, inspired by a recipe in The Best Ideas for Kids. I enjoyed this one. Shaving cream aids in removing the "fluff" ”

We've done fluffy tub paint with shaving cream before, so I wanted to see how it worked with DIY slime, which is why I went with that option. All the details, including how to make it and how big it should be, are in the original post and tutorial, which you can find here

Ingredients for this dish include:

• Glue
• Eye drops for contact lenses
• Sodium bicarbonate for baking
• Water
• Aftershave lotion

After combining the shaving cream, glue, and water, we found that the resulting substance was extremely light and airy. We completed the recipe, including the addition of pink food coloring, and then stirred everything together.

The verdict on making your own fluffy slime

What we saw was appealing. My kid invited her friend over to help her try this out, and they totally messed up the house. But they enjoyed themselves immensely and found the whole thing to be hilariously messy.

Take into account that this one is messier and will require some cleanup after use. That was another one that we found to be cumbersome to stow away in a purse or backpack. To store it, I'd use a Tupperware container with a tight lid. In the close-up images below, you can see the uniformity for yourself.

The fifth experiment involved making slime out of liquid starch and glue.

DIY liquid starch and glue slime from the website Little Bins for Little Hands was the fifth and final slime recipe tested. This one was different because it included liquid starch as an ingredient.

The kind that you'd use to make clothes Visit the aforementioned link for a complete set of instructions and necessary measurements. I don't think I'm the only one who has never used liquid starch.

The fact that the bottle proclaims its contents to be "great for crafts" suggests that we are meant to put them to additional uses. Seeing as how I now have a ginormous bottle at my disposal, I intend to investigate other DIY projects that call for it.

The ingredients in this dish are:

I'll admit my skepticism. Using only three basic components I'm worried that my picky daughter will find it too sticky, like the other slimes we've tried that only require three ingredients. We just combined glue, water, and liquid starch for this one.

What's the deal with liquid starch How come it produces slime As was mentioned up top, the answer lies in the chemical reaction between the liquid starch and the PVA in the glue. Polymer strands, or chains of the components in the liquid starch, are formed by the glue to form the slime.

To get the salmon hue, we mixed the primary colors of red and orange. (My daughter insisted on something pink, but we didn't have any; I therefore attempted to pass off salmon as pink. Before adding the final component, we dumped in a ton of pink glitter.

What we think of liquid starch and glue slime you can make at home

Yesssssss THIS It's this one right here. It shocked me how similar it was to the slime you can buy in stores. What's more, it only took a few minutes to prepare!

If yours isn't reaching that "slime" consistency, try adding more liquid starch, as I did, even though the recipe called for less.

After including a little more than the recipe called for, I "whipped" the contents of the bowl thoroughly with a spoon. And the end result was SUPERB. If you want your slime to be as thick as the commercial varieties, you should use this recipe.

Since I found the uniformity to be so captivating, I snapped a lot of pictures of it. And we kept him entertained for the better part of thirty minutes, which is a long time for a child of his age. In fact, I found that playing with it helped me unwind.

In addition, our table was left with hardly any traces of our play. One of the main reasons I decided to buy the product was that it would make my life easier by eliminating this step.

In addition, I spilled some on my skirt, but it washed out without a problem. I can't say for sure that the others don't; I didn't try. )

Save this pin for when you're ready to try one of my five homemade slime recipes!