These Friends Are 'Delivering Joy' with Their Slime Empire: 'We Created a Magical World of Play'
Courtesy Sloomoo Institute Sara Schiller and Karen Robinovitz
Four years ago when Karen Robinovitz and her longtime friend Sara Schiller first plunged their hands into a container of slime, the idea of creating a business out of the mucus-like goop was the furthest thing from their minds.
The two New Yorkers were just happy to have found something that lifted their spirits during a period when they were both dealing with personal tragedies. Robinovitz, 50 — who ran one of the first talent agencies for social media influencers — lost her husband in 2017, followed by her cousin in Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. Schiller, 52, was caring for a daughter with a rare debilitating genetic syndrome and a husband with severe disabilities from a stroke.
Soon they realized that others could benefit from slime's calming abilities and created a business, known as the Sloomoo Institute. Now it's spreading across the country, with locations already in New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
"Doesn't this look oddly satisfying?" asks Robinovitz — in an interview in this week's PEOPLE — as she works a greenish glob of slime through her fingers. "This one smells like a Christmas tree, but we have others that smell like everything from sugar cereal and brownies to dirt and unicorn poop."
That's right, unicorn poop!
For more on the magic of the Sloomoo Institute, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.
Courtesy Sloomoo Institute Sloomoo Institute visitors
Wander inside the vast 12,000-square-foot Sloomoo Institute in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood and the first thing you notice is that the place is filled with what appears to be a vast ocean of slime, glimmering and glistening in every color of the rainbow.
The stuff is literally everywhere. It's in shimmering white vats that both children and adults are plunging their hands into. It's dripping from the walls and being fired out of giant slingshots. People are walking barefoot through it. Others clad in ponchos are standing under spigots, shrieking with laughter as it rains down on their heads.
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There's even someone called a "slime-tender" mixing up custom concoctions featuring unique scents, colors and personalized trinkets.
"We're both really proud," says Schiller, "to have created this magical world of play that's bringing joy to so many parents and their kids and getting people off their phones."
Courtesy Sloomoo Institute Sloomoo Institute visitors
Since 2019, their celebration of this immersive goop has become a serious business venture for the longtime friends, who charge up to $48 per person to get access to the thousands of gallons of slime inside their Sloomoo Institutes.
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"We're both go-big-or-go-home types," says Robinovitz, laughing.
In addition to launching three additional institutes in the coming months, the pair also have several slime-related spinoff ventures in the works. And while their brand is growing, their mission has already been accomplished.
Says Schiller: "We're delivering joy. I've lost track of how many times I've heard parents say, 'Oh, I'm just going to watch my kids.' And two hours later they're like, 'I needed this more than they did.'"
