Yellow food colouring added to PVA Glue and washing liquid

Slime Recipe: Formil Slime: Easy UK recipe with no Borax

Just 3 ingredient slime recipe with PVA glue, Washing Liquid, and Food Colouring. No Borax needed. Easy to make and with ingredients you can get from a UK supermarket (Lidl’s Formil makes good slime!).

Mixing the Slime recipe ingredients to make DIY slime
Mixing the Slime recipe ingredients to make DIY slime

Before we continue, I’d just like to say – it might seem like Copse Magazine are late to the make-your-own-slime party and that’s because it’s true. We have held out as long as humanly possible in the face of pressure from a 10 and 7-year-old. The kids have been pestering to make slime for a long time, they have an increasingly diverse collection of putties and slimes that are in various colours, textures, glow-in-the-dark, and other vile-to-the-touch things that only children could love.

But now, we could hold off no longer. Even I was feeling the peer-pressure from school-friends and my children are A-grade experts at knowing how to wrap me around their little fingers.

Mixing shaving foam, PVA glue, and Washing liquid to make home-made slime
Mixing shaving foam, PVA glue, and Washing liquid to make home-made slime

It was slime time. So how do you make your own slime at home for children? How can you make DIY slime that is easy, cheap, and safe?

UK Slime Recipe Shopping List:

  • PVA Glue
  • Lidl Formil Bio Washing Liquid
  • Food Colouring
  • Optional – Shaving Foam (adds ‘fluffiness’ to make fluffy slime)

Making slime is a bit of an art as well as a science, and after a few successful and a few more failed attempts, you’ll soon get the hang of exactly how the mixture should feel as you’re stirring it.

Yellow food colouring added to PVA Glue and washing liquid
Yellow food colouring added to PVA Glue and washing liquid

UK Slime Recipe Method

  1. Add the glue

    Pour half a cup of PVA Glue into a mixing bowl or plastic tub

  2. Add the shaving foam

    If you are using the optional shaving foam, then add 2-3 cups of this now. It makes the slime recipe go further and makes the slime fluffier, but it’s not essential if you haven’t got it.

  3. Add the food colouring

    Add your food colouring bit by bit until you achieve the desired colour. Don’t be afraid of the food colouring as you will need to use more than you might be used to in cooking – but it’s still worth poring it in one capful at a time

  4. Add the washing liquid

    Add two tablespoons of Lidl Formil Bio Washing Liquid. You may need a little more, but I would err on the conservative side until you’ve mixed for a bit as you can always add more washing liquid to the slime recipe but you can’t take it out!

  5. Mix

    Mix together really fast – you should see the liquid seem to curdle. This is the ‘magic’ within the washing liquid doing magical things to the glue (You can see how my science A-levels really helped me out 20 years later)

  6. Know when to stop

    The slime is ready when it self-cleans itself off the bowl. I.e. when the mix starts to bind together into a soft dough – the slime mixture does take a little while to change into its final state. We had a running commentary from the kids that went something like “wow-it’s-working… oh-my-god-it’s-failed… oh-actually-daddy-it-has-worked-after-all.”

Kids proudly making slime at home with our UK slime recipe without Borax
Kids proudly making slime at home with our UK slime recipe without Borax

Recipe Notes

  • If the slime seems to slimey when you are making it then add a little more of the washing liquid
  • If you add too much washing liquid then your slime will become more putty like and will ‘snap’ instead of stretch
  • We would recommend that you wash your hands after use and don’t eat the slime. We wouldn’t eat PVA or Washing Liquid and that’s what the slime is made from. Plus, if your kids are anything like mine then after barely even a few minutes the slime will also contain bits of hair, fingernail, toast crumbs and anything else you told them not to drop the slime in
  • We also tried using contact lens solution instead of the washing liquid but it didn’t work for us. We now have multiple bottles of expensive contact lens solution and none of us wears contact lenses. The things we do for our kids!
Home-made slime made with just 3 ingredients
Home-made slime made with just 3 ingredients