How to Make Slime with Borax and White Glue

Gather Your Slime Materials

To get started, you will need:

• Water
• White glue
• Borax
• Food coloring (unless you want uncolored white slime)

Instead of using white glue, you can make slime using clear glue, which will produce a translucent slime. If you don't have borax, you can use contact lens saline solution, which contains sodium borate.

Prepare the Slime Solutions

Slime has two components: a borax and water solution and a glue, water, and food coloring solution. Prepare them separately:

• Mix 1 teaspoon of borax in 1 cup of water. Stir until the borax is dissolved.
• In a separate container, mix 1/2 cup (4 oz.) white glue with 1/2 cup water. Add food coloring, if desired.

You also can mix in other ingredients, such as glitter, colored foam beads, or glow powder. If you use contact lens solution instead of borax, you don't need to add water to dissolve it. Just substitute one cup of contact solution for the borax and water.

The first time you make slime, it's a good idea to measure the ingredients so that you know what to expect. Once you have a bit of experience, feel free to vary the amounts of borax, glue, and water. You might even want to conduct an experiment to see which ingredient controls how stiff the slime is and which affects how fluid it is.

Mix the Slime Solutions

After you have dissolved the borax and diluted the glue, you are ready to combine the two solutions. Stir one solution into the other. Your slime will begin to polymerize immediately.

Finish the Slime

The slime will become hard to stir after you mix the borax and glue solutions. Try to mix it up as much as you can, then remove it from the bowl and finish mixing it by hand. It's OK if some colored water remains in the bowl.

Things to Do With Slime

The slime will start out as a highly flexible polymer. You can stretch it and watch it flow. As you work it more, the slime will become stiffer and more like putty. Then you can shape it and mold it, though it will lose its shape over time. Don't eat your slime and don't leave it on surfaces that could be stained by the food coloring. Clean up any slime residue with warm, soapy water. Bleach can remove food coloring but may damage surfaces.

Storing Your Slime

Keep your slime in a sealable plastic bag, preferably in the refrigerator. Insects will leave slime alone because borax is a natural pesticide, but you'll want to chill the slime to prevent mold growth if you live in an area with high mold count. The main danger to your slime is evaporation, so keep it sealed when you're not using it.

How Slime Works

Slime is an example of a polymer, made by cross-linking small molecules (subunits or mer units) to form flexible chains. Much of the space between the chains is filled by water, producing a substance that has more structure than liquid water yet less organization than a solid.

Many types of slime are non-Newtonian fluids, which means that the ability to flow, or viscosity, is not a constant. Viscosity changes according to certain conditions. Oobleck is a good example of a non-Newtonian slime. Oobleck flows like a thick liquid yet resists flowing when squeezed or punched.

You can change the properties of borax and glue slime by playing with the ratio between the ingredients. Try adding more borax or more glue to see the effect it has on how stretchy or thick the slime is. In a polymer, molecules form cross links at specific (not random) points. This means some of one ingredient or another usually is left over from a recipe. Usually, the excess ingredient is water, which is normal when making slime.