I have a couple from last night. They are still faintly glowing. I was wondering if it would be dangerous if I cracked them open and played with the glowing goo inside.
They are considered nontoxic. Still, I wouldn’t drink the contents.
They contain Hydrogen Peroxide (reasonably strong too) and produce Phenols as they glow. I wouldn’t open them up.
The glow goo reminded me of Predator blood when we cracked one open. It was pretty cool, but it stained the stuff it dripped on to.
(I don’t know if it is toxic, so I am not recommending you follow my example.)
When I was a kid I was fascinatedly looking at one of these while twisting and bending it and the damn thing broke open and squirted in my eye. It burnt like crazy, but was fine after I washed it out.
If you throw them in the freezer at night before you go to bed, you can easily get a second night out of them.
bis(2,4,5-trichlorophenyl-6-carbopentoxyphenyl)oxalate
Trichlorophenol has a nasty sound to it. It’s probably not something you want to eat on a regular basis.
Also, the 2 times I have opened one up they had broken glass inside from the tubes of stuff that was mixed up in them after the “crushing” of the outer tube…
That reminds me, how do glow sticks work? They are liquid with some kind of hard glass thing in the middle that, when broken, mixes with the liquid somehow and glows? Witchcraft??!? 
There is a thin glass tube in the middle of the thick plastic one. The liquid in the middle tube reacts with the stuff in the outer tube and the reaction causes the glowing.
Millions of fireflies gave their lives so you could wave silly glowing sticks on the 4th of July.
The study of the Luceferase and Luceferin reactions lead to the creation of man-made chemiluminescent materials.
Is this a joke? Do you avoid Cyanocobalamin and Phylloquinone? The stuff in glow sticks in non-toxic. Period.
You’ve seen Predator blood and lived to tell? Interesting.
I’ve worked with various chlorophenols, they tend to have redox properties that cause them to interact with biological systems. Here’s one example:
Without knowing precisely what phenol is generated in the reaction with H[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]2[/sub], you’d have to be nuts to be casual about smearing it around on your flesh or ingesting it*.
PS, I’m quite fond of vitamins B and K, why do you ask?
*and free radical reactions, such as those in a glowstick, are notorious for producing multitudes of minor products. I’d prefer to see some evidence that all those products are safe before I go and take a bath in the stuff.
Declaring affinity for vitamin K in a thread about glowsticks is open to misinterpretation.
I had a friend who chugged the contents of a glowstick - gave him a stomachache, but he was otherwise fine. (I know, I know, anecdotes aren’t data, but still.)
Oh Lord, I forgot!
I guess I better just plead oldness on that.
Just going by wikipedia, then phenol is just plain phenol. It’s an acid with some analgesic properties, but not particularly problematic. It is remarkable in the lab for being able to burn your skin while numbing it at the same time. Definitely a dumb thing to swallow, but it is a major ingredient in throat sprays so YMMV.
I opened one up over the sink once. The stuff inside stinks. It is non-toxic though. I believe it glows in UV light too.
That article covers just the reaction of 1,2-dioxetanedione.
The old Cyalume glowsticks used bis(2,4,5-trichlorophenyl-6-carbopentoxyphenyl)oxalate CPPO. It looks to me like that’ll break down into substituted trichlorophenols.
I’m not certain which chemistry everyone is using these days, or if everyone is even using the same chemistry. That being the case, a little caution is called for, even if the label on my imported, from God knows where, glowstick says “safe and non-toxic.” Ink is cheap, actually proving safety is not.