The Safer Schools / INEQE Safeguarding Group Viral Trend Warning is a vital child safety alert designed to inform parents, carers, and education professionals about a dangerous online trend.
Children and young people are microwaving squishy silicone toys after seeing online videos claiming this makes the toys softer and more pliable. When the toy is squeezed afterwards, it bursts and sprays boiling material, which reportedly has left children’s hands and faces seriously burned.
The toys are widely available in UK shops, and online stores including Amazon and TikTok Shop and are immensely popular for both children and young people.
Often, the packaging for these toys provides a warning not to heat, freeze or microwave. Children are ignoring it because the online videos they watch encourage them to do the opposite. The child may no longer have the original packaging to even see the warning.
The silicone casing insulates heat yet the outside stays cool to the touch, all while the inside reaches boiling temperatures.
In most reported cases, the child was unsupervised. There was no adult present to intervene before the injury occurred.
Children have been seriously injured by this trend in the UK and the United States since 2025. Most recently, a 10-year-old girl in Bristol was seriously hurt and left with facial burns on 4th May 2026 after supposedly hearing about the trend from TikTok. Likewise, in the US, a seven-year-old required a medically induced coma and a nine-year-old narrowly avoided permanent vision loss. Hospitals in Chicago and Indiana treated multiple cases in a single week in February 2026.
These are only cases that have reached public attention but evidently this is an active online trend which appears as an innocent ‘life hack’ (a simple technique for making everyday things easier) for children but carries serious risk.
To findout more download the information leaflet below.
