A gooey business on the Coast

A gooey slime craze inspired a nine-year-old Umdloti entrepreneur to turn the fun trend into a little business, which is taking the gummy industry by storm.

Skyler Carmichael has already landed a contract with Spar and is exporting the green stuff to Swaziland.

“I like to experiment with new things and when I was watching videos of slime making on Youtube, I decided to give it a try. I used different ingredients from the ones that were shown on the video. At first it failed, but I kept on trying until I was successful. I was so excited to make my own unique slime,” said Carmichael, who is a pupil at Crawford Preparatory North Coast.

She makes about 50 bottles of slime in her parents’ garage every second day. Skyler experimented with many recipes before she found a “not too sticky” texture. While the recipe is a secret, she said some of the ingredients include borax, food colouring, water and, the most expensive ingredient, glue.

Slime is a toy that children make with glue and borax powdered, consisting of soft colourless crystals that dissolve easily in water. They enjoy stretching the goo, making crunching sounds and bubble popping. There are many textures including basic, clear, fluffy, clay, butter, and crunchy.When she took her slime and showed it to her friends, they loved it and asked her to make more. However, Carmichael’s hobby is an expensive one and her mother, Dreshni, began to complain.

Her friends insisted that she must keep on bringing more slime and said they were prepared to pay.

“One day I came home with R600 and told my parents that I want to start a business.”

With more than 100 bottles sold to her classmates, Carmichael’s parents are working hard on helping her expand her business.

“Her 2018 goal is to open a slime factory and expand her product throughout the country. Currently, she has one employee and as her business grows, she will employ more people,” said her mother.

She gave her parents instructions on how she wants her product branded and her mother said they were blown away when she told them that she wanted to put a warning on the bottles that kids could not eat it.

She said her daughter has a soft spot for the poor children and she is planning to use the money to make more slime, give back to less fortunate children and save as much as she can.

“It makes me happy to see other children happy because of me. It makes me feel good.”

Her mother said although they are glad that the business is growing, they have to ensure that school comes first.

“It’s always school work first then slime,” said Dreshnie.

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