These Gifts Are Disgusting. That’s the Point.

In this edition of The Gift, we have a positively icky assortment of gross (but great) gifts. Plus: 19 excellent gag gifts.

Kids can change your life in all sorts of unexpected ways. They may inspire you to be kinder, make the world seem more worth fighting for, or show you a profound new way of seeing something.

In my case, I now hear “butt cheeks” and “poop” infinitesimally more times since a bunch of children, namely my boyfriend’s now-tween daughter, came into my life. Last spring, when the three of us were visiting my family shortly after his daughter’s birthday, my sister-in-law, knowing the birthday girl’s proclivities, went all out on gross-themed gifts. Among them was a box of jelly beans — where each color of bean was made in both delicious and disgusting flavors. For instance, a red-spattered orange jelly bean could taste like a peach … or barf.

As I set about making a birthday cake in our kitchen-dining room, five adults and two children gathered around the table to try these trick-or-treats. What ensued was groans and moans, sighs of relief, and wildly contorted faces followed by manic laughter. The kids kept racing to the trash can to spit out bad flavors and then back to the table to try their luck again. What a time.

The young are certainly not alone in their fascination with slightly unsettling stuff. So, in honor of those in your life who revel in puerile jokes, harmless pranks, and our most joyfully revolting of holidays, we offer these Wirecutter-approved gross gifts:

• In the past several years, the slime industry has exploded in popularity with kids and adults alike. This well-composed slime kit, beloved by editor Hannah Rimm, includes everything your giftee needs to make the stuff (like a mixing bowl so they don’t have to use one from the kitchen) and yields vibrantly colored goo, thanks to its high-quality dyes and cool mix-ins.
• For more science experiments with an ick factor, this chemistry kit boasts a wider range of creepy projects, such as making squishy eyeballs. And several Wirecutter journalists (me included) have nostalgic memories of dissecting owl pellets as kids.
• Or what about these little plastic “toilets,” which come with two lollipop-plungers for dunking in the bowl of flavored sugar? If you want to take things a step further, these lollipops are made with real (edible) scorpions.
• Grody stuff also makes for un-boring learning. This Weird But True! Gross book kept my boyfriend’s daughter engrossed for an entire morning with its 300 “Slimy, Sticky, and Smelly Facts.” And for younger kids, the Butt or Face? book has readers guessing if a given picture is an animal’s rear or front — and is a classic in the genre.
• Style writer Zoe Vanderweide’s 8-year-old daughter giggles every night when she breaks out her 15-sound fart machine for a pre-bedtime toot fest. “I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s one of her most prized possessions,” says Zoe. And this farting poop-shaped plushie is almost irresistible for kids to squeeze anytime it’s in sight.

Across generations and cultures, humans have been drawn to the nasty, the creepy, and the downright odious. And while Halloween is our most obvious testament to that, I’d also argue that for a select group of people, whatever the occasion, there may be no greater joy than getting something that is absolutely, unfathomably, undeniably disgusting.