MOUNT PEARL, N.L. — She may not wear a crown — and there is some debate amongst her Grade 4 classmates over whether she is the true monarch of moldable slop — but Rebecca Glavine still lives as if there is no question she is the slime queen.
Slime, which has been around for decades, but has again become popular amongst kids in recent years, is a stretchy, sticky, malleable substance, which Rebecca says is a very satisfying stress reliever.
As she sits in her slime lab surrounded by her ingredients — glue, baking soda, contact lens solution, glitter and an assortment of other decorative additives — the Rebecca, 9, recounts getting involved in the slime business at the age of five.
“I was always a fan of science and I love doing experiments,” Rebecca said.
After her mother, Deanne Glavine, came across an online video about making slime, she suggested it to her daughter, and the two were off to grab the supplies shortly thereafter. But perfecting the art of slime takes time and experimentation.
“The first, I don’t know, twenty times that we tried it, it was liquid,” Rebecca said. “We had to dump it in the garbage. It would not turn to slime.”
Rebeca tested different ingredients — Tide and Borax — before finding her resolve on contact lens solution.
And once she had her slime recipe perfected, she quickly discovered a large market of people her age who share her passion for the tension-alleviating goop.
She began taking orders from her classmates and was soon so busy that she barely had time to eat at recess.
“Kids from every single class starting going, ‘It’s Rebecca Glavine, it’s slime time!’ and then ran up to me and started giving me orders,” she said.
It became so overwhelming, her mother had to put a limit on the amount of orders she could accept.
“I told her, 'You can’t bring home more than eight a day,'” Deanne said.
Last year Rebecca combined her love for making slime with her love of cats when she began donating a portion of her proceeds — $2 from every sale — to Purfect Purrs Jackie Martin Legacy Cat Rescue, an organization that rescues, finds homes for and raises funds for medical procedures for cats.
Rick Brown, one of the directors, says Rebecca gives him faith in the next generation.
“She’s just a sweetheart,” Brown said.
In animal rescue, you see the best and worst of people, Brown says, and Rebecca highlights the goodness.
“What kid at Christmas time got $150 that wants to give it to help somebody else?” Brown says. “Her mom is raising an amazing child.”
Kinder, one of Rebecca’s three cats, walks in and out of the lab, meowing, as Rebecca describes what making slime has taught her over the years.
“I learned (about) holographic glitter, iridescent glitter, fine glitter, chunky glitter, all sorts of different types of glitter,” she says.
On top of the esthetic aspect, she has also learned how the different chemicals in the products she uses, particularly boric acid and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), react to each other to create the slime she sells.
Even after four years, her enthusiasm remains.
“I love the process of making it,” Rebecca says. “No slime is the same. Even if you make it with the exact same ingredients (and) the exact same amount, not one extra particle, it will still not have the same feel and it will still not be the same slime.”
The slime queen has her own website and Facebook page, and has just authored a how-to guide e-book that she is selling on Amazon.
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Twitter: @andrewLwaterman
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