WARNING: BEWARE OF HOMEMADE SLIME
We came across an interesting article about homemade slime. It’s a popular thing with the kids right now, so we thought we should share.
The post starts off by saying:
“I’m writing this to let you know our experience with homemade slime. I am not a doctor or a scientist or a chemist. I just don’t want what happened to my daughter to happen to anyone else…
If you have elementary age kids, you are probably familiar with the current slime obsession. My daughter and her friends became obsessed with it a few months ago and couldn’t get enough of it. So much so that they decided they would start making it themselves at home, a simple endeavor providing you have the right ingredients.”
burn from slime
While we know that homemade slime basically consists of:
Borax
White Glue
Water
Shaving Cream
Food Coloring (optional)
You may find a few variations of the above recipe, but these ingredients are more or less of what is used to make it.
The Mom said that her 12-year-old child got sick, which they initially thought was the same basic cold. The symptoms were the same: cough, sore throat, stuffy nose but she was also complaining about headaches and general achiness.
Assuming that her symptoms would be relieved in a few days, they didn’t pay it too much attention.
Unfortunately, they didn’t go away and weeks later, the family was left wondering what on earth was going on! The Doctor found nothing at first – other than your basic cold symptoms, there wasn’t anything wrong with her on the surface.
But the Mom thought there was something more than what meets the eye…
Her husband was actually the one who connected the dots. He said one night, “Do you think it could have something to do with the slime she’s been making?”
She said it was like a lightbulb went off. From that moment, the family banned her from making, holding, touching or even looking at that slime.
The very next day, her headache went away and her throat didn’t hurt anymore. She still had some congestion, but was not coughing. Two days later, the congestion started going away and she was breathing better and talking better.
The Mom started to investigate a little more about what her child was getting into and what she found out was disturbing. She quotes:
BORAX – FROM THE WEBSITE, CQ CONCEPTS:
Boric acid, sodium borate, and sodium perborate are estimated to have a fatal dose from 0.1 to 0.5g/kg. These substances are toxic to all cells, and have a slow excretion rate through the kidneys. Kidney toxicity is the greatest, with liver fatty degeneration, cerebral edema, and gastroenteritis. Boric acid solutions used as an eye wash or on abraded skin are known to be especially toxic to infants, especially after repeated use due to its slow elimination rate.
GLUE – FROM THE WEBSITE, MEDILINE PLUS:
Symptoms of breathing in (“sniffing”) glue fumes may include:
– Anxiety
– Convulsions (from breathing in large amounts)
– Drunk, dazed, or dizzy appearance
– Excitability
– Headache
– Irritability
– Loss of appetite
– Nausea
– Red, runny nose
– Low oxygen level in the blood and organs (respiratory failure)
– Stupor
– Seizures
– Coma
SHAVING CREAM – FROM THE WEBSITE, HOW STUFF WORKS:
Propolene glycol is a humectant like glycerin, but unlike glycerin, it’s more frequently found in antifreeze and brake fluid. Triethanolamine, better known as TEA, is an emulsifying agent, meaning it helps keep the oil and water from separating.
It’s also a very controversial ingredient in the cosmetic industry because not only is it a skin irritant, but many formulas containing TEA are found to be contaminated with nitrosamines, which are linked to cancer. Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulphate (SLES) are two more controversial skincare ingredients. These make a great lather, but they also have a number of health implications. Lauryl mimics estrogen, which is especially problematic for women, and laureth often hosts a known carcinogen called dioxane.
How scary!!!
Toxic…. Respiratory Failure… Seizures…. Cancer…. Coma…..
I doubt any parent would want to put their kids at risk of any of the above!
In conclusion, the Mom said:
“Can I ever be 100% sure that the homemade slime ingredients were causing my daughter’s illness? Probably not. But… one thing I’ve learned in 17 years of parenting is never to ignore your gut instinct… and ours said that making slime was hurting our kid.
All I can say is please be informed. What seemed so innocent turned out to be full of ingredients that are deadly. So even though these ingredients might have really had nothing to do with Lauryn being sick, the fact remains that these ingredients are dangerous and have no business being in the hands of children. Or anyone.”
Have your kids had an experience with similar symptoms?
You can read the article we referenced here