How to Make Slime, According to Slimefluencers

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Glue

If you want to makecrystal-clearslime or transparent colorful slime rather than white, you can make your base using just Elmer’s Clear Glue instead and mix it with activator. Clear slimes showcase glitter or other add-ins like beads or charms better than opaque slimes do.

Elmer’s also makes specialty glues, like this light-sensitive product that changes color when exposed toblack light or strong sunlight. (For a color-changing slime, you can use just this and an activator.) Standen told us that a slime video she’d posted to Instagram, in which she drew a smiley face on her slime using this glue as a base, recently got 505,000 views. Elmer’s offersglow-in-the-dark,metallic, andglitterglues that you can use as a slime base as well.

Once you’ve mixed your base materials, it’s time to activate. Slime is formed when the glue’s protein molecules cross-link with borate ions in the activator, creating a new polymer. “For a basic slime, you pretty much just add an activator to your glue base,” says Alyssa J., who prefers using a solution of borax and water over activators like contact-lens solution andbaking sodaor liquid starch. Take a half-teaspoon of Borax and stir it into a cup of water until it’s fully dissolved. Then add the solution, one tablespoon at a time, to the glue mixture until the slime starts to form and reaches your desired texture.

If you’re looking to do less mixing, Elmer’s makes a premade activator calledMagical Liquid, which comes in a variety of colors and textures, including confetti, crunchy, and glow in the dark. You’ll need a quarter-cup of the activator for every five to nine ounces of glue. This bottle should make around four batches of slime.

In addition to the basics — glue and activator — you can use a bunch of other ingredients to change the texture of your slime. Both Standen and Alyssa J. uselotionto make their slime stretchier, adding it to the base slime before mixing in the activator. Alyssa J. is a fan of scented lotions from Bath & Body Works, which add a pleasant fragrance to her slime. But if you’d rather keep it fragrance free or if you prefer getting your scent from essential oils, as Standen does, you can opt for an unscented lotion like this one from Curél that Alyssa J. recommends.

Glycerinmakes slime stretchy and glossy, but it can also make it thinner. So it’s a good thing to have on hand in case yours ends up too thick. Add it to your base mixture about a teaspoon at a time. Standen also recommends using it to loosen and remove any slime that accidentally gets stuck on your clothing or carpet.

Like glycerin, baby oil makes slime glossy. Alyssa J. says, “When you see people poking slime on Instagram and hear those popping sounds, that’s because they’ve added somebaby oil.” Also like glycerin, it can make your slime runnier fast. So you’ll want to add baby oil a little bit at a time because, according to Alyssa, “too much will make it oily and not fun to play with.”

In contrast, “corn starch will make your slime thicker,” says Alyssa J. “It’ll turn your slime into something more matte and really sticky.” She recommends adding this to your mixture one heapingtablespoonat a time.

Once you’ve mastered making basic slime and thick-and-glossy slime, you’re ready to take on cloud slime and cloud cream. This is achieved by adding fake snow to your thick and glossy slime. Standen likes SnoWonder brandfake-snow powder. You mix it with water before adding it to your slime, and “it makes your slime very soft, almost like cashmere or angora,” Standen says. “It turns it into something that drizzles like a waterfall when you stretch it apart. If you add less SnoWonder to your slime, you can make a cloud cream” — a denser, less drizzly slime that still has the same soft feel and appearance.

Another very satisfying slime trend involvesmixing clayinto slime to create what’s called a butter slime. Standen prefers doing this with a thick-and-glossy slime base, but you can also use a more basic white-glue slime. Professional slimers have taken the butter slime trend to another level by creating limited-edition two-part slime-and-clay kits. These are often food themed and come with sculpted clay objects, like smiling sushi, rainbow-poop emoji, hot dogs, or meticulously painted slices of bread that you get to smush into the corresponding slime to create a butter slime. Standen and Alyssa J. both recommend using Daiso air-dry clay to make your own clay add-ins for butter slime. Alyssa J. also told us you can useCrayola Air-Dry Clayto do something similar.

If you’re not using a colored Elmer’s glue for your base, there are a number of other ways to add color to your slime. According to Standen, the most common and easiest to use is food coloring. Alyssa J. says, “All you need is a drop or two of food coloring for a cup of slime.” Other popular (but possibly messier) colorants includeacrylic paintorpowdered pigments, which Alyssa J. says are her favorite for clear slimes and which come in metallic and pearlescent shades.

If, at this point, your slime still needs something extra, our experts recommend a handful of different beads and charms to give it some added zing. That zing can be cute, colorful, light-reflecting, or snowlike and puffy like these microfoam beads. Standen adds foam beads to her best-selling birthday-cake slime because she likes the way they rise to the top and how satisfying they are to crunch between your fingers. According to Alyssa J., you can source your foam beads from the inside of an oldtravel pillow, or you can buy them in bulk like this.

Standen’s birthday-cake slime also contains fakesprinkles, which, due to their weight, sink to the bottom of her slime. These are just one of the manycandy-inspiredadd-ins you can use to add crunch and cuteness to your slime. You can also use any kind of bead, glitter, or tiny charm that you want. Basically, if you can imagine it, it exists as a small plastic charm on Amazon.

Alyssa J. tipped us off to these polymer-claystickers, which she says are “usually used fornail art,but now they’re super-popular for slime.” You can buy the full clay canes and cut them yourself, but it’s so much easier to buy them already cut.

Standen got her start by innovating scented slimes, hence her Instagram handle, @scentedslimesbyamy. She recommends using either scented lotion or skin-safescented oilsto add scent to your slime, but she warns against using candle scents, which can irritate the skin. Alyssa J. also has a warning: “Don’t use any kind of food-additive scented oil because that would rot within your slime.” This set of six scented oils is skin safe and comes with popular sweet scents like marshmallow and cupcake.

Without a container, your slime will pick up dust, dirt, and hair. Standen told us that when she attends slime events her fans will often give her homemade slime as a gift. “Kids show up and give you their homemade slime, and it’s adorable.” Those slimes often arrive in ziplock bags or deli containers, which work, but if you’re looking for a nicer way to present your slime, theseglass jarsare a great place to start.

If you’re looking for somethingsmaller and lighter, maybe to use at a kids’ slime-themed birthday party or for gifting slime, these heart-shaped storage containers are a cheap, attractive option.