Is Homemade Slime Safe? Orange County Parents Question The Slime-Making Craze

MISSION VIEJO, CA — Have you tried and failed to find glue at your local big box store recently? You might have noticed that it has disappeared from the shelves. Same with products like shaving cream and Borax. Why? Because the kids are making slime. Not just a little slime but bowls and bowls of the gooey glop.

Homemade slime is the latest craze for middle and elementary school students. With a recipe that calls for Elmer's Glue, shaving cream and Borax, mothers are starting to question the safety of kids making large quantities of the sticky goo.

When mom blogger "This Talk Ain't Cheap" posted on the apparent dangers of homemade slime, whether or not making slime was making her daughter sick and whether it was dangerous to make and keep slime in your home, the post got mothers in Orange County talking.

"Any times you start mixing products together, there could be symptoms," blogger Carolyn West said. "Using product for things they weren't intended to be used for. Detergent isn't a toy. There are many other options for making slime that aren't dangerous."

Rosie Jimenez of Mission Viejo is a stay-at-home military wife, a mom of five who lets her 8-year-old daughter, Melany, make and play with slime.

"(Melany) found the slime recipe online, and told me it was so easy and that she could do it all by herself," Jimenez said. "YouTube makes it easy for kids to make all of these DIY things, and we're a DIY family."

True to her word, Melany made slime on her own, and the only trouble caused in the Jimenez household was when she tried getting her 4-year-old sibling to make it with her.

"Melany leaves it wherever she makes the slime, usually for a day or two," Jimenez said. "When I noticed that someone said it was the glue that made it more dangerous."

The question raised by the southern California mom blogger came when she noticed her daughter was experiencing breathing issues that were unexplained. Removing slime from the home seemed to resolve the issue, however questions have arisen that cannot be put back into the bottle.

"When it comes to slime ingredients, there are different types of glue products, and recipes state that you need to buy the non-toxic glue, and other products," Rosie said. "I try not to buy anything that is dangerous, or leave things out where the kids can reach."

Not a chemist, West knew enough about chemistry to understand mixing certain chemicals could become problematic for unsupervised kids.

"The kids take a little bit of this, a little bit of that and often get enthusiastic about what they're doing, without knowing what they are creating could be dangerous," West said. "If I brought awareness that is all I hoped to do."

According to Snopes, Dr. Jason Hack from Rhode Island Hospital has stated that concern over the use of Borax in slime is not an issue.

“It’s a small amount of Borax,” Hack explained to Snopes. “It’s not absorbed through the skin. It would take eating a lot of it to actually become toxic. The only one caveat is it’s not too pleasant if you get the dust in your eyes."

The rub with the cleaning product is in the directive to "keep out of reach of children" when children are the ones making the slime.

Alternative slime ingredients include saline solution, with none of the toxicity problems and similar slime- creation benefits.

Elmer's Glue cites saline solution as its product of choice for slime recipes, leaving the questionable Borax ingredient out of the equation.

So, should kids be able to make slime at home? Rosie Jimenez still thinks so. That, and have the kids clean up after themselves when they are finished.

"Definitely let them do DIY projects, such as making slime, but look into it," she said. "Watch them when they make things around small children, look into the recipes, and do more research."

Ashley Ludwig, Photo