FolkArt Invisible Glow Paint Review: Where Is the Glow?
I’ve heard about glow-in-the-dark paints for a while, and when I came across FolkArt Invisible Glow, I figured this was my chance to finally give one a try. Of course, when I see something new that might be fun for my creepy crafts, I have to experiment with it. I was excited. Then I painted a dowel with it.
And waited.
And waited. Nothing.
After doing a little investigating, I discovered that I needed multiple coats for the glow to really show. Okay, fair enough. So I added more coats and tried again. Still nothing.
Eventually, I discovered another important little detail. This paint needs to be charged by UV light. Apparently, the normal light in my house wasn’t enough. You need direct sunlight or a UV light to really charge it. Well… I have UV lights. But I’m not going to leave UV lights sitting around turned on all day just so my paint can have a little spa treatment before I expect it to glow. LOL.
So I decided to give it a quick test under one of my UV lights for about five minutes. And…BLAH. It barely glowed
You can see a little bit of the effect in the photo, but it wasn’t anything that made me think, OMG, GLOWING PAINT! It was more like, Oh… I guess that’s glowing. I scrapped the dowl I had painted that was going to be a part of another project. I am going to try painting a garden rock.
And Then There Is the Color
This was another disappointment for me. When I opened the bottle, I expected the paint to actually look purple. It didn’t. It was white. And once it dried, it became clear. I understand that this is an “invisible glow” paint, so technically that’s the point. But personally, if the glow isn’t going to impress me, I at least want the paint to look cool when the lights are on!
Give me the purple paint. Instead, I have invisible paint that doesn’t look purple, dries clear, and requires UV light or direct sunlight to get a glow that, so far, has been pretty underwhelming.
One More Experiment
I’m not giving up quite yet because, well, I already have the bottle. I have some rocks that I’ve painted black, so I’m going to try painting the FolkArt Invisible Glow onto one of them. I’m going to put it back outside in direct sunlight and let it sit there all day. Then I will go outside when it is dark and see what happens.
Maybe the five minutes under my UV light just wasn’t enough. Maybe direct sunlight will make a huge difference. Maybe I’ll finally get the glow I was expecting. Or maybe I’ll just have the same black rock. 😂
Stay tuned for Experiment #2.
My First Impression
So far, I’m not a fan. The biggest problem for me isn’t even that it needs to be charged. It’s that I went into this expecting a fun glow-in-the-dark paint, and instead I have a clear paint that needs a pain in the butt charging process and barely glowed during my first test. I’m definitely going to give it the sunlight test before I completely write it off. But at the moment, I’m not exactly running out to buy another bottle. Rating so far: BLAH. Maybe the rock will change my mind. We’ll see!
And honestly, this is exactly why I like trying these products. Sometimes you find something you absolutely love. Other times you find something that makes you say, “Well, that was disappointing.” Either way, it’s an experiment. And those are usually the fun ones.
