London - A girl of ten was left with chemical burns, blisters and peeling skin on her fingers after making home-made slime using a recipe she found on YouTube.
Layla Fisher followed one of dozens of tutorials on the video-sharing site to make slime – a current playground fad – and mixed common ingredients including PVA glue, shaving foam and contact lens solution.
The solution contains the chemical compound borax, which is used to make slime thick and sticky and is often also found in household cleaning products.
Her mother Gemma Williams, 39, believes it was borax that caused her daughter’s hands and fingers to blister.
The chemical reaction triggered the contagious bacterial skin infection impetigo, which has required antibiotics.
Williams is sharing pictures of her daughter’s burns to warn other families.
She said: "It’s a real craze with children of that age. They play about with it, stick their fingers in it, pull it around and then put it in a container. The burns were causing all of Layla’s skin to start stripping off and her fingers were covered in blisters.
"It could have been a lot worse. With chemicals like this involved it’s not only skin problems you need to consider, the worry is with the fumes as well. It could have been fatal."
Williams is sharing pictures of her daughter’s burns to warn other families. Picture: Website screenshot
Earlier this week, consumer magazine Which? warned that some slime products had been found to contain potentially unsafe levels of the chemical boron, found in borax, which can cause short-term bouts of diarrhoea, vomiting and cramps.
The watchdog found eight out of 11 products it tested exceeded the EU safety limit for boron of 300mg per kg.
Williams, who lives with partner Mark Fisher, 45, a landscape gardener, and their other child, Jake, 17, in Oadby, Leicestershire, said Layla made the slime at home on July 6.
She played with it on and off for a couple of hours before putting it away in a container.
But that evening her fingers began itching, and by the following morning she was developing blisters. She was treated by her GP and then by doctors at Leicester Royal Infirmary.