# Day-Glo or Luminescent, etc...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 9, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243 "2001-10-09T02:57:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/1 "2001-10-09T02:57:56Z")
What is it that makes a color react so well with a black light? I think it is called Day-Glo in some places. I want the local discount store to make me a few gallons of it so i can paint my house this sort of color. The only kind that I can find is in spray cans and that would run about half a million bucks for my 700 sq ft. house, and I want to get the gallon cans for $10 with free color added! Will they have the necessary additives, or is that why the price is so high? What is the additive?
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2001, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/2 "2001-10-09T04:06:26Z")
You want to paint your entire house Day-Glo? You live in Southern California, right? đ
Just a hunch.
Anyway, looks like you may need to do some hunting, but the stuff is out there.
[http://www.dayglo.com/DOCS/about.html](http://www.dayglo.com/DOCS/about.html)
> [@](#):
>
> DAY-GLO Fluorescent Pigments â are provided in dry and dispersed form and used in such varied marketplaces as plastics, paint, and graphic arts. Customers mix the dry pigments to a specific color match in their formulas and either provide that as a fimished product, such as paint, or in turn pass those products on to another converter such as a plastic injection or blow molder, a textile printer, a gravure printer, or a host of other areas where color is a part of the finished product.
>
> Dispersed pigments â are provided to offset inks manufacturers who, again, color match in a specific formula and supply the finished ink to the offset printer.
> Screen inks â are supplied as dry pigments or finished screen inks to the screen ink manufacturer who, in turn, supplies the screen printer.
> Paints â are supplied as a finished product by DAY-GLO or as dry pigments and/or a concentrate dispersion to paint manufacturers.
You may need to look around for a custom house paint supplier, but it looks like he can order the pigment and mix up your paint for you.
And, this is probably a dumb question, but you did check the Sherwin Williams and Dutch Boy paint chip cards down at the DIY lumberyard, right?
And how it works.
[http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Technology/0104/t00348d.html](http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Technology/0104/t00348d.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Why are day-glo colours so bright?
> âDay-gloâ colours are made of fluorescent materials. Normal objects get their colour by selective absorption - a red paint absorbs the blue and the yellow so that only the red gets scattered back. Objects painted with day-glo paints which are fluorescent, donât just scatter back light from the visible part of the spectrum. They can also take shorter wavelengths (usually ultraviolet) that we canât normally see and re-emit some of this energy at longer wavelengths that we can see. So fluorescent materials emit more red light for example, than ordinary red objects because they take some of the ultraviolet light that we canât see and shove it out as visible light.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2001, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/3 "2001-10-09T12:02:23Z")
âDay-Gloâ is a trademarked name for that brand of fluorescent paint. They get touchy when their name is bandied about as a synonym for âFluorescentâ, because they donât want to have their precious brand name reduced to a generic term that anybody can use. Thatâs what happened to âcellophaneâ and âaspirinâ and âzipperâ. Look in the pages of Writerâs Digest to see full-page ads from companies just _begging_ you to avoid statements like âLetâs Xerox itâ, and to use patently unearthly sentences like âLetâs make a Xerox brand photocopy of it.â
There _are_ other brands of fluorescent paint. What happens is that the paint absorbs a photon of short wavelength light (usually ultraviolet), then re-emits a photon of visible light (at adifferent wavelength). This differs from ordinary paint, where light is merely reflected and there is no wavelength difference (technically called a âStokes Shiftâ) between incident and emitted photon.
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### Author:  [@grtfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grtfred)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/4 "2010-05-14T15:29:33Z")
This may surprise you- you might be incredulous. If youâll recall, pure white, such as a clean white shirt, or a tablecloth, lights up in UV light. You donât pay much attention because itâs just white. The only thing special about day glow paint is that there are no black or gray pigments, only a mixture of the color plus white. Iâve consulted with chemists and physicists about it. There are materials that do fluoresce, absorb light at one wave length and emit it at another, such as some minerals and some organic compounds but thatâs not what is in day glow paint. That doesnât mean itâs simple to create those colors. There are thousands of pigments that contain black and grey. Itâs very complicated to get a pigment that reflects only white and colored light.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/5 "2010-05-14T15:52:05Z")
> [@grtfred](#):
>
> pure white, such as a clean white shirt, or a tablecloth, lights up in UV light. You donât pay much attention because itâs just white.
Such whites can be deceiving:
> [@](#):
>
> [Optical brighteners](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_brightener#Common_uses), optical brightening agents (OBAs), fluorescent brightening agents (FBAs) or fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) are dyes that absorb light in the ultraviolet and violet region (usually 340-370nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum, and re-emit light in the blue region (typically 420-470nm). Fluorescent activity is a short term or rapid emission response, unlike phosphorescence, which is a delayed emission. These additives are often used to enhance the appearance of color of fabric and paper, causing a perceived âwhiteningâ effect, making materials look less yellow by increasing the overall amount of blue light reflected.
> âŚ
> Brighteners are commonly added to laundry detergents to replace whitening agents removed during washing and to make the clothes appear cleaner. Optical brighteners have replaced bluing which was formerly used to produce the same effect. Some brighteners can cause allergic reactions when in contact with skin, depending on the individual.
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/6 "2010-05-14T22:46:31Z")
Iâm a thankinâ ye!
Best wishes,
hh
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/7 "2010-05-14T23:07:41Z")
Wow! Zombies like DayGlo!
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/8 "2010-05-14T23:09:31Z")
> [@grtfred](#):
>
> This may surprise you- you might be incredulous. If youâll recall, pure white, such as a clean white shirt, or a tablecloth, lights up in UV light. You donât pay much attention because itâs just white. The only thing special about day glow paint is that there are no black or gray pigments, only a mixture of the color plus white. Iâve consulted with chemists and physicists about it. There are materials that do fluoresce, absorb light at one wave length and emit it at another, such as some minerals and some organic compounds but thatâs not what is in day glow paint. That doesnât mean itâs simple to create those colors. There are thousands of pigments that contain black and grey. Itâs very complicated to get a pigment that reflects only white and colored light.
This is a mind-blowingly-inaccurate first post!
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### Author:  [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/9 "2010-05-15T00:22:03Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> There _are_ other brands of fluorescent paint. What happens is that the paint absorbs a photon of short wavelength light (usually ultraviolet), then re-emits a photon of visible light (at adifferent wavelength). This differs from ordinary paint, where light is merely reflected and there is no wavelength difference (technically called a âStokes Shiftâ) between incident and emitted photon.
This. I came in all ready to demonstrate my _exhaustive_ knowledge, but CalMeacham explains it very well.
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### Author:  [@grtfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grtfred)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/10 "2010-05-16T03:42:01Z")
Thatâs a fine job of taking a quote right out of Wikipedia. Look hard at what Iâm saying here. There are light reactive compounds, they absorb uv and emit at a different wave length. Thatâs luminescence. Thatâs not what Iâm talking about. You take any piece of white copier paper in a dark room and shine a uv light on it and it appears to be emitting light. Try it.
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### Author:  [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/day-glo-or-luminescent-etc/86243/11 "2010-05-16T03:54:53Z")
> [@grtfred](#):
>
> Thatâs a fine job of taking a quote right out of Wikipedia. Look hard at what Iâm saying here. There are light reactive compounds, they absorb uv and emit at a different wave length. Thatâs luminescence.
No, thatâs fluorescence.
> [@](#):
>
> Thatâs not what Iâm talking about. You take any piece of white copier paper in a dark room and shine a uv light on it and it appears to be emitting light. Try it.
Which is true, but itâs exactly the same thing you describe at the beginning of your post â again itâs fluorescence. Here, fluorescent compounds are added to make âwhiteâ objects look even more dazzlingly âwhiteâ. Itâs a trick that relies on the fact that we observe blue parts of the spectrum as brighter than yellow or red parts of the spectrum.