I got slimed for The Charlotte Observer. It reminded me of the ‘power of play’

If you’re anything like me, you haven’t thought about slime much this decade.

It was all the rage in 2016, when my middle school classmates ran full businesses and I used glue, baking soda and contact lens solution to poorly DIY the trend.

After fads like Sillybandz, Rainbow Looms and Kendamas, this seemed to be the next big trend. But as we grew up, we stopped dumping full bottles of Elmer’s directly onto our kitchen counters and moved onto the next YouTube craze.

That’s why I was surprised that Sloomoo Institute, an interactive play site dedicated to slime, was opening a Charlotte location in the year 2026.

When I was assigned to check out this new slime experience on Metropolitan Avenue in Midtown, I quickly learned I would be the one experiencing the slime — with my hands, my feet and apparently, my entire body as the goo was dumped on my head.

I went in with one main question: Is slime back?

How Sloomoo got its start

Before I got to live out my Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards slime-ing dreams, I sat down with Sloomoo Institute co-founders Sara Schiller and Karen Robinovitz, who are both based in New York City.

Perched on little stools in the Sloomoo birthday party room in Charlotte, the duo told me about their 18-year friendship. While the space we were in felt lighthearted, the company’s origin was in grief.

Robinovitz was grieving the loss of her husband and, later, lost her cousin in the Parkland High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. A friend’s 10-year-old daughter brought slime over one day, and Robinovitz spent hours playing with it.

“Slime really helped me through depression. And that is something I openly share, because I want other people to know that there are ways through,” Robinovitz said. “I’m not saying slime is a cure for everybody, but it brought me so much light at a time I really needed it, and I believe that there’s light for everybody.”

Robinovitz recommended slime to Schiller, whose husband had a severe stroke that had left him disabled. When Schiller saw her oldest daughter, who has a rare genetic syndrome, exploring slime with her youngest daughter, she saw her kids play equally for the first time.

These experiences inspired the co-founders to open the first Sloomoo Institute in New York City in 2019, followed by locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, along with miniMOO outposts in Philadelphia and Boston.

The Charlotte Sloomoo Institute’s soft opening started on Wednesday, July 8, and its grand opening will be Saturday, July 18. Schiller said the project was a multimillion-dollar build-out.

“Charlotte is an incredibly family-forward city, and families are the heart of our business,” she said.

They built their business with inclusion in mind, valuing a neurodiverse workforce and scheduling sensory hours, offering guests a quieter experience.

Tickets start at $29.99, getting more expensive during peak entry hours and days, and include a custom slime to take home. Additional slime and copies of Sloomoo Institute’s graphic novel, Sloomoo: Making Friends, are also for sale.

Robinovitz said they signed a 10-year lease for the space in the Metropolitan shopping center in Midtown. “I think we’re here in Charlotte to stay,” she said.

Exploring the Charlotte slime exhibits

To enter the experience, I took a Buzzfeed-style quiz and got my Sloomoo sidekick character, Groov.

Guests wear name tags with their slime names, based on a 2017 slime trend to replace vowels with two ‘o’s. I slapped a “Clooooroo” tag onto my shirt and headed in to check out the slime — or sloomoo.

I cleaned my hands with a wet wipe and walked past the slime wall through the slime gallery area, trying out different textures, including butter, cloud creme and snow fizz.

As I towered over children who stood on tiptoes and stools to reach the slime containers, I remembered why the 2016 craze was so fun.

“Hey, what’s your slime name?” a kid with the nametag Oomoory asked me. She celebrated a successful slime trick, stretching the mixture out to create a big bubble.

I walked through Groov’s Groovy Grove, a glow-in-the-dark room with electronic music and even more slime, headed past the Slime Slingshot and over to Lake Sloomoo. I wiped my feet as an employee told me that we don’t mix, eat or throw slime from the lake.

After that much-needed reminder, I stepped in. “I love my job,” I said, ankle-deep in pink and blue slime.

Robinovitz assured me that Sloomoo Institute slime is changed out weekly and is made onsite with an antibacterial ingredient.

“I used to be actually a hard-core germaphobe,” she said. “This company cured me.” I’m not sure I’ve reached her level of confidence yet, but I was having too much fun to care.

Time to get slimed for The Charlotte Observer

In journalism, you have to ask the tough questions. So I asked Robinovitz: “Can I get slimed?”

I got the same spiel about the protective gear as the crowd of elementary schoolers who went before me. An employee helped put a shower cap on me, and I placed my arms in a “penguin” position at my sides.

Then another employee secured two ponchos over me. Unlike the stars at the Kids’ Choice Awards, I was thankfully protected by two layers of clear plastic.

I stepped into the spray area and played a rigged game of freeze dance. As two bouts of gooey liquid dumped on my ponchoed head, I spent 62 seconds questioning how on earth this was happening.

Why was the goo a little warm? Why did I tilt my chin slightly up, allowing a few drops of that blue mixture to drip onto my cheek? Why was Observer photographer Ali Costellow laughing at me? Well, I could answer that one.

I was laughing, too.

I then explored the slime-less Loomoosh’s Lounge, an interactive installation that uses cameras to detect guests’ movement and shift projected “slime” shapes across the walls and floor. On the way out, I saw kids designing their slimes to take home, filling their creations with charms and scents.

An hour and a half had flown by. The only phones I saw out were parents recording their kids. Even the few teenagers were focused on the slime. It was a welcome reminder of what Robinovitz called the “power of play.”

Based on my afternoon at Sloomoo Institute, slime is clearly back. Maybe it never left.

This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "I got slimed for The Charlotte Observer. It reminded me of the ‘power of play’."