I was asked by one of my children the other day if it was possible to make their glow in the dark ceiling stars glow brighter and for longer.

The answer to the question was yes, we can. In their case it was fairly easy to do but let me talk about it in general as there are a number of things to take into account.

Not all glow in the dark products are equal!

The glow in the dark pigment that is used in many older glow in the dark products is a zinc sulfide-based phosphorescent pigment. This was developed in the '70s and is yellow-green and not terribly bright, it doesn't glow for long either, perhaps an hour or so. Thankfully things have mooved on considerably since then and it isn't unreasonable, given the right conditions, to expect 6-8 hours of bright glow from a good quality product.

Nowadays most glow in the dark pigments, or phosphorescent pigments, are made from Strontium Aluminate. Strontium Aluminate is a very safe, non-radioactive material which is 10 times brighter and glows 10 times longer than zinc sulphide.

Making glow brighter and better.

So how to make your glow in the dark products glow better. Well, firstly charging up your glowing item, whether it is glow paint or a glow in the dark bouncing eyeball, using a bright light and then plunging it into darkness is very effective. Glow in the dark things don't glow well when they are charged slowly and gently eased into darkness. ie in the transition from day to night. Much better to wait until it is completely dark and then charge up the item with a bright lite and then switch it off.

Even better still, and something that you don't see mentioned very often is to us a UV blacklight to charge up the glow in the dark item. Waiting until it is completely dark,  shining a UV blacklight over your 'glowing-to-be' item and then plunging it into darkness again will produce the brightest and longest lasting result.

Improving the Childrens glow in the dark stars.

So how did we improve the childrens glowing stars? well I told them we had to wait until it was dark for a start and I put a UV Blacklight bulb into a spare lamp, without the lamp shade, and turned it on for a few minutes in their room - let the stars charge up and simply turned off the UV light. Easy and incredibly simple - they were happy, and I was not...... it took them ages to go to sleep!!