Radioactive-Looking Slime

Mad Scientist Lab

green bubbles
Escaflowne / Getty Images

The slime you might find in a real Mad Scientist's lab would probably be the result of some horrible genetic mutation. You can make slime that looks radioactive and toxic, yet is actually easy to make and safe. Here's how you do it.

Slime Materials

  • 4-oz bottle school glue gel
  • borax
  • water
  • food coloring

Prepare the Slime Solutions

You make slime by mixing together a borax solution and a glue solution. Prepare these solutions first and then use just the amount you need to make perfect slime.

Borax Solution

Take about a half cup of hot water and stir in borax until it stops dissolving. The solution may be a little cloudy. That is fine. You will use the liquid part for making slime, not the gritty stuff at the bottom of the container.

Glue Solution

The trick to making translucent extra-slimy slime is using the right glue. You can use white glue, but the slime will be opaque. If you want clear jelly-like slime, use the glue gel. It is usually pale blue, but a little food coloring can turn it any color.

  1. Stir 4-oz of glue into 1 cup of water.
  2. Add a couple of drops of food coloring. The radioactive chemistry green-yellow color is obtained by adding 2 drops of yellow or 2 drops yellow and 1 drop of green coloring, depending on how green you want the slime.

Make Slime

Just mix together 1/3 cup of the borax solution and 1 cup of the glue solution. If you are making bigger batches of slime, just use 1 part borax solution and three parts glue solution. It is fine to use your hands. I posted a video so you can see what to expect.

Make it Glow

You can make the slime glow very brightly under a black light if you break open a yellow highlighter, remove the stick containing the ink, and let it bleed into the water you use to make the slime. Wear gloves when breaking the highlighter pen unless you want highlighted fingers. Also, avoid getting any fluorescent slime on furniture or any other surface that might be stained by the ink.

Store Your Slime

When you aren't using your slime, keep it in a sealed plastic bag so that it won't dry out. It will stay moist and disgusting for a couple of weeks if you store the bag in the refrigerator.

How Slime Works

When you mix the glue and the borax a chemical change occurs in the polymer in the glue, polyvinyl acetate. Cross-linking bonds are formed, making the glue stick to you less and to itself more. You can experiment with the amount of glue, water, and borax that you use to make the slime more fluid or stiffer. The molecules in the polymer are not fixed in place, so you can stretch the slime.

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Radioactive-Looking Slime." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/radioactive-looking-slime-608247. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (2023, April 5). Radioactive-Looking Slime. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/radioactive-looking-slime-608247 Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Radioactive-Looking Slime." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/radioactive-looking-slime-608247 (accessed May 7, 2024).