NEW YORK: Layla Singer turned 10 on Tuesday, 19 July, and as a special birthday treat, she got drenched in slime at the Sloomoo Institute in New York.

"I love slime," she said. "But my dad hates it. Probably wasn't the most fond experience for him."

How did it feel for him?

"So gross," said her father, Matthew Singer. "Not my most favorite thing in the world. But you know, they absolutely enjoyed it."

His 8-year-old son Ryan Singer definitely did.

"I don't like slime, I love slime," he said. "It's not cool, it's awesome."

The Sloomoo Institute is dedicated to all things slime, with an enormous slime wall decorated by the more than 100,000 visitors to the institute, a 350-gallon slime lake that visitors jump into and feel six inches of squishy, soft slime with their bare feet, a glow-in-the-dark slime cave, and much, much more.

"The Sloomoo Institute is a place of joy," said Sara Schiller, co-founder of Sloomoo Institute. "It focuses on everything around sensory play from slime, which is one of our core focuses, but we also have ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), kinetic sand and a lot of different fun compounds for people to play with."

Sloomoo was created in 2019, after co-founder Karen Robinovitz found that slime helped heal the grief she was going through at the time.

"Karen Robinovitz, my partner and I, have been really good friends for 14 years," said Schiller. "Both of us, about five years ago, went through really personal tragedies. Her husband died and her cousin was in the Parkland school shooting and my husband had massive bilateral strokes resulting in severe disability. So the two of us were together as friends, and Karen discovered slime. She fell in love with slime because it made her feel good. She really came out of a state of depression and she called me up and said, 'I have to bring this over to you,' and she said, 'This is not the slime of our childhood.' She came over, I have two daughters and we started playing and you could not take the smile off of all of our faces. She and I realized that we wanted to bring this joy to everyone, to families, to adults, and to give people permission to play and have fun."

Schiller said slime brought them out of their grief because playing with the slime centered them.

"Karen and I found that we were happy because we were in the moment," she said.

Slime starts with a glue base, and ingredients like lotion or clay are added to make it silky or soft.

"Slime taps into all of your senses," said Schiller. "The sense of touch... that's really proven to release endorphins and to make your brain feel good. You can make amazing pops with the slime."