How to Blacklight a Room

If you're looking for an exciting, unconventional way to throw a party, a black light room is a fabulous idea. These fluorescent lamps have an extra coating that filters out all the visible light and lets in long-wave ultraviolet light. Once the room is dark, that ultraviolet black light reflects on whatever is white or fluorescent. These things pop out, making your celebration fun and memorable for kids and adults.

Before installing black light bulbs, you'll need to choose the space for the party and make it completely dark. Experts recommend covering any windows with aluminum foil rather than dark fabric to block out the most light. Push the foil right onto the glass and shape it around the window frame. Also, hang heavy fabric or black sheets in front of the door or entryway.

Once you are satisfied that no light is coming into the room, get to work on replacing the lighting with black light bulbs and black light lamps. You can find black lights for sale at home improvement stores, electronics stores and places like Walmart and Amazon. They have incandescent ones and fluorescent tubes, and you might need both depending on the kinds of light fixtures you have.

You should have about three fluorescent black light tubes per room and many incandescent ones for the best results. The other option is to buy a powerful, large LED black light. Naturally, these will cost you more, but they work pretty well, and you won't have to get a lot of smaller bulbs.

White clothing is excellent for these parties, and there are additional glow-in-the-dark products that every black light party needs. These include glow sticks, UV paint, light-up and flashing neon rubber balls and flashing jewelry. Be sure to get these several days before the party so that you can do a test run. If they are not glowing in the dark, adjust the window and door coverings. You may need a stronger black light.

Surprise black light parties can be awesome, and you can provide those items and other things, like flashing hair extensions, glow sunglasses and glow swords or wands. The products basically fall into two categories: glow products and flashing products. If the black light party is not a surprise, just let your guests know and encourage them to bring their own goodies.

Food can also follow the black light theme, and there are some really fun ideas for this. Glow-in-the-dark Jell-O is actually a thing. Use lime or lemon and swap out the water for tonic water. You can also make a punch with this Jell-O and add glow sticks or glow-in-the-dark gummy bears.

Like tonic water, olive oil also glows under black light; it turns orange. You can make an antipasto platter with deviled or hard-cooked eggs (they're white) and drizzle it with the oil. Tortilla chips, potato chips, rice and cooked pasta also glow in the dark, and certain salad greens look reddish under the black lights. Search for other glow-in-the-dark foods, like sprinkles for the desserts.

There are countless other glow-in-the-dark products on the market, like nail polish, glasses, balloons, garlands and T-shirts. You won't want to overdo it, so remember to do a test run before the party. This will be an event that everyone will remember!