Blu Tack
pressure-sensitive adhesive putty
Blu Tack is a reusable putty-like pressure-sensitive adhesive produced by Bostik, commonly used to attach lightweight objects (such as posters or sheets of paper) to walls, doors or other dry surfaces. Traditionally blue, it is also available in other colours. Generic versions of the product are also available from other manufacturers. The spelling now used is without a hyphen.
As of 2015, Bostik was manufacturing around 100 tonnes of Blu Tack weekly at its Leicester factory.
History
Blu Tack was originally developed in 1969 in Leicester.
While the inventor of the commercial Bostik product is unknown, a precursor was created around 1970 as an accidental by-product of an attempt to develop a sealant based on chalk powder, rubber and oil. Blu Tack was originally white, but following fears that children could mistake it for chewing gum, a blue colouring was added. Different colours of Blu Tack were introduced in 2003.
In the United Kingdom in March 2008, 20,000 numbered packs of pink Blu Tack were made available, to help raise money for Breast Cancer Campaign, with 10 pence from each pack going to the charity.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Blu Tack” is pressure-sensitive adhesive putty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tack, pressure-sensitive and adhesive, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “pressure-sensitive adhesive putty” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q632702. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 1969, 1970 and 2003.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blu Tack” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.