DIY Cotton Candy Slime

Materials you'll need

• Clear glue
• Shaving cream
• Blue food coloring
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon or spatula
• Wooden craft stick
• Borax (activator) ⚠️ See safety note below

*Safety note

Borax can irritate skin, especially with prolonged contact or for kids with eczema or sensitive skin. If you'd like to use a lower-concentration alternative, swap the borax/warm water mixture for a contact lens solution activator: mix ½ teaspoon of baking soda into the glue-water mixture, then slowly add contact lens solution one tablespoon at a time, stirring as you go, until the slime comes together. Check the label. It needs to list boric acid or sodium borate as an ingredient, or it won't work. Note that contact lens solution contains borax derivatives at a much lower concentration, so it's gentler but not entirely borax-free. Either way, wash hands after playing and keep slime away from eyes and mouths.

Heads up: swapping the activator may change how your slime turns out. Different concentrations can affect stretchiness and texture, so results may vary.

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Pour the glue into a mixing bowl.

Step 2: Add a LOT of shaving cream on top of the glue.

Step 3: Add a few drops of blue food coloring, then stir until the color swirls evenly through the mixture.

Step 4: Add the activator (borax/warm water mixture) a little at a time, mixing as you go.

Step 5: Keep mixing until the mixture pulls together and turns from fluffy foam into a stretchy slime.

Step 6: Take the slime out of the bowl and knead it with your hands until it's smooth and stretchy.

Step 7: Shape it onto a stick like a cotton candy pop to show it off.

Learn more

This slime is really a polymer science experiment in disguise. Glue is made of long, tangled chains of a polymer called polyvinyl acetate — on its own, those chains slide right past each other, which is why glue is runny. The activator changes that: it links the chains together at different points (called cross-linking), turning the loose, slippery glue into one big stretchy network. The shaving cream is doing its own job too — it's basically a foam packed with tiny air bubbles, and those bubbles get trapped inside the slime, which is what makes it feel light and fluffy instead of heavy and dense.