This Hack Turns Any Phone into Black Light

What You'll Need

• A blue and purple marker
• Transparent tape
• Smartphone with LED flash
• Highlighter
• White paper

How to Turn Your Smartphone into a Black Light

This project can be literally be done is seconds if you have all of the materials in front of you. It's that easy. And if you don't plan on taking any photos or videos with your device's camera, then feel free to tape over that part also—if you're afraid of getting ink on your camera lens.

1. Place a small piece of tape over the LED flash on the back of your iPhone or Android smartphone (will also work on tablets with built-in flashes), which should be close to your rear camera.
2. Color on top of the tape with blue marker so that it covers the flash.
3. Place another piece of tape over top of the flash, and color on top of it with blue marker as well.

4. Place a third and final piece of tape over the flash, but this time color over the flash with your purple marker.

5. You're done! Seriously, that's it.

Using Your New Smartphone "Black Light"

On a piece of white paper, write/draw anything down with the highlighter, then turn on your device's flashlight feature in a dark room and shine the purple/blue tinted light at it.

The yellow writing on the paper will come to life thanks to your brand new DIY black light, giving it a prominent look in complete darkness.

Depending on the type of highlighter you use, your results will vary. Below are several examples, each from different highlighters, under my makeshift black light.

If you want to take photos with the black light on, just make sure that you don't tape over the camera lens (like I did in my video up top) or you'll have a pretty blurry picture. Likewise for videos, though you'll also want to keep tape off of your microphone, too.