Glow in the Dark Slime Instructions
Tuesday February 17, 2009
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Materials
- borax (from laundry aisle of a grocery store)
- Elmer's™ non-toxic blue glue gel (sold with office or school supplies)
- Glow-Away™ washable paint (sold near tempera paint at Michael's craft store)
- water
- bowls or cups
- spoons
- measuring cups
- In one bowl, mix 1/3 cup glue with 1 cup water. I used a whisk, since stirring with a spoon was slow.
- Stir or whisk in about half a tube of the paint.
- Pour about half a cup of hot water into a cup or second bowl.
- Stir in borax until it stops dissolving (starts to leave some at the bottom). This makes a saturated solution without any measuring at all.
- Measure and mix 1/3 cup of the borax solution (the clear part, not the undissolved stuff at the bottom) with 1 cup of the glue/glow mixture.
- You can try to whisk this, but it's easier to use your hands.
- Activate the glow by holding the slime under a bright light. Any light works, but the brightest glow will come from a UV lamp (black light) or a fluorescent bulb. Turn out the lights!
- Wash your hands when you are done playing with your slime.
- You can store the slime indefinitely in a sealed baggie.
Photo: Ryan with glowing slime. (Anne Helmenstine)
Comments
We did this last week for class. The children were trilled with it. They are still playing with it 5 days later.
One suggestion: Put the paint in the water before putting the glue in. It worked very well that way.
Thank you for the recipe.
Thanx the product works sooo well i love it but how can i make it last for longer? plz answer
thanx again
hope it works!
Hey I want to try your project and hope it works. I was wondering how many day or weeks does it last for? Please reply back. Let’s see if it is going to work.
The slime lasts indefinitely. My daughter has had some in a baggie for over a year.
To some extent, you can make it glow longer and brighter by exposing it to higher intensity light, such as a black light as opposed to sunlight or an incandescent bulb. To make it glow a lot longer, you need to use phosphorescent paint intended to glow a long time or tritiated paint, which glows because the tiny plastic spheres in the paint contain radioactive tritium.
Another alternative is just to keep a black light handy, since that will keep the glow charged.
I had a go doing this project and it went really well, I combined it with some cool glow cups, which really put a smile on the kids faces.