Blacklight or UltraViolet(UV) light holds many scientific, artistic, and practical uses in today’s modern world. The most common use of it is to detect stains or spills in our homes.

You might be wondering, what does a black light show on a carpet?

Blacklight reveals many stains and substances like biological fluids such as urine, saliva, semen, and blood. It also detects dried liquid detergents, quinine(tonic water), invisible inks made with lemon juice, vitamins, toothpaste with whiteners, petroleum jelly, mold, and some food like honey.

Crime scene investigations often use UV light for hunting for evidence mostly unseen by the naked eye.

Hidden traces of blood in blacklight can appear when sprayed with a chemical substance called luminol. Blood will always leave a stain on floors, walls, or carpets, even if it is thoroughly cleaned.

Other fluids like saliva, urine, and semen also glow under the blacklight. Animal fluids will also glow in a blacklight.

Detecting the dried urine of your pets is easy by using UV light, making it easy for any person to clean the exact dirty spot in their home.

Cleaning after pets can be a practical use of blacklight in every home today. Knowing how to make a blacklight can be useful in certain circumstances like this.

How to make a blacklight at home?

Although blacklight bulbs are readily available online or in any local hardware store today, making a homemade blacklight is super easy. So simple that even a kid can do this.

You just need simple materials like cling wrap, colored cellophane, clear tape, blue and purple marker pens, and most important of all, a lighting device.

Specifically, a flashlight or a smartphone.

How to make a blacklight using a flashlight?

In using a flashlight to create a blacklight filter. You need cling wrap, blue and purple marker pens, and rubber bands.

Put a decent size piece of cling wrap to fit all over the lens cover of the flashlight and secure it in place with a rubber band. Use a blue marker pen to color the cling wrap over the lens. Repeat the process by using another clip wrap as a second layer with the same blue marker pen.

For the third and last cling wrap layer, use a purple marker pen instead.

If you do not have cling wrap or blue and purple marker pens, you can always use a blue and purple cellophane gift wrap instead.

How to make a blacklight on your smartphone?

You can turn your smartphone into a black light in simple and easy steps similar to the process mentioned above when using a flashlight. This time you only need clear tape and blue and purple marker pens.

Stick a piece of clear tape over the flashlight LED on the back of your phone, and then color the area above the LED with a blue marker.

Stick another layer of clear tape on top, making sure you do not smudge the existing blue ink. Repeat coloring the area this time with purple.

Add another layer of clear tape, then mark it with blue. And finally, add the last layer of clear tape and mark it with purple.

If you don’t feel like going through the trouble of doing this, then you can also get a black light app available on both Android and iOS phones.

The app is more reliable and can be handy at times when you need UV light right away. You can easily open and close the app whenever you want.

What are other cool and practical uses of blacklight?

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Blacklight technology provided several scientific breakthroughs and made our everyday lives easier. It also created some cool and practical applications for fun and entertainment.

It provided opportunities to improve the quality of every person’s life as well as the innovation we need in some notable fields.

In case you were wondering, these are the common and practical uses for blacklight in our society today.

Health and Medical Applications of blacklight

To date, UV lights offer a number of distinguished purposes in modern technology.

The most common of these would be for sanitation and cleaning purposes. Hospitals use blacklight technology to test surfaces for bodily fluids, especially on highly contagious outbreaks such as Covid-19. It is often used for professional cleaning to detect if hidden pathogens are present in walls, doors, and furniture.

Hotels and Restaurants use blacklight inspections to ensure that their facilities follow the hygienic standards of their respective industries. Blacklight reveals invisible stains like urine, bacterias, and even mold.

Leaks and moisture build-up on old houses for quality inspection can utilize blacklight to easily detect molds. This can be handy when you are in the real estate industry. Other potentially dangerous fluid leaks like in the refrigerator and air conditioning system use UV light to trace hazardous components.

One practical use of blacklight we see every day is the bug zapper. An insect control system that uses a special type of UV blue light that attracts insects and electrocutes them after. The tanning bed is also a simple but perfect example that uses strong sources of long-wave ultraviolet lights.

According to Wikipedia, Blacklight has some diagnostic and therapeutic uses in medicine. The use of blacklight in cosmetology and dermatology provides detection as well as treatment for common skin problems, even treating skin cancer.

Detecting some fungal and bacterial infections under a blacklight is easier. Selected fungi emit specific fluorescent colors through UV lights. The urine of a patient with ethylene glycol poisoning or commonly known as antifreeze poisoning, glows through UV lights.

Legal Applications of blacklight

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Aside from crime scene investigations, inspections under a blacklight can detect counterfeit money. It can also determine if an official document is authentic or falsified. Identification like passports and driver’s license often relies on practical uses of blacklight for an additional layer of security.

Blacklight also authenticates oil art paintings, antiques, and banknotes. UV lights can inspect paintings for forgeries by the presence or the absence of fluorescence on it.

Stolen banknotes can hide invisible markers, easily tagging them as stolen for attempts of government recovery and tracing.

Entertainment Applications of blacklight

Other cool ways to use blacklight today happen in amusement parks, nightclubs, and festivals which require admission of crowds.

Event organizers use fluorescent markers to quickly identify people admitted to the event. Fluorescent markers are usually located on the hands or wrists to determine admission.

Several cool products that use blacklight technology exist today solely for fun and entertainment.

The cosmetic industry now offers glow-in-the-dark beauty cosmetics and skincare products. The use of blacklight is common among lavish parties, bars, events, and nightclubs around the world.

There are now glow-in-the-dark paint and ink products for face and body painting. Under strategic blacklight installation all around the venue, everyone can glow under the blacklight surroundings.

Nightclubs and bars now serve fluorescent drinks. You can buy glow-in-the-dark hair gels and hair dyes to stand out from the crowd.

Blacklight technology now also appears in glow-in-the-dark decorative items like posters, lamps, bulbs, flashlights, and led lights.

The fascination with blacklight may have started in the ’80s, but it definitely is still part of pop culture today.