[ghostlland820]

Because I have too much time on my hands, I bought four brands of white UV paint for comparison:
-- UVfx from Amazon at $1.41 an oz. (8.45 oz. bottle)
-- GloMania from Amazon at $7 an oz. (2 oz. jar)
-- Rosco from B&H Photo at $1.31 an oz. (32 oz. can)
-- Wildfire Optical White from Wildfire Lighting at $2.31 oz. (32 oz. jar)

I painted a rough piece of plywood half black and half white with standard paint. Then I painted stripes across the board using the UV paints. Because of the roughness of the board, I used two brushed coats of the UV paint. I also made stripes using a half-and-half mixture of the Wildfire paint with water, and same with the Rosco.

The UVfx and GloMania paints were the thinnest. The Rosco was almost like regular white paint, and Wildfire was in between. Again, two coats were used for each stripe.

You can see the results for yourself. The photographed colors are fairly true to what I saw with my eyes. UVfx, GloMania and Rosco all had a distinct blueish tint. The Wildfire...not sure how to describe the color...maybe a touch of green? The next photo shows the sample palette along with part of a fake shutter I made using Wildfire paint. I've used Wildfire optical white for several years and am very happy with it, but it's the most expensive of the samples.

I used blacklight tubes in a workshop fixture to light the samples. The tubes don't cast any of the purplish background light associated with (cheaper) blacklights having the wrong wavelength. (Yes, the tubes themselves are purplish.)

So, in conclusion, your choice might depend on how much you want the paint to stand out in daylight, how much you want to spend, and whether you prefer a more-or-less blueish tint to the "white" when illuminated with blacklight.

 

[wdallen504]

Great demonstration! I have been trying to decide which brand to get. Did you also test out the transparent UV paints as well?

 

[Therewolf]

Excellent Work! Thank you for the time, effort and $$ spent. Proof, you get what you pay for! I've been wanting to switch over to wildfire paints but the cost was hard to justify, until now.

 

[ghostlland820]

Great demonstration! I have been trying to decide which brand to get. Did you also test out the transparent UV paints as well?

I didn't. The UVfx and GloMania are nearly transparent but also don't offer much of a glow when not on white (or other light colors, I assume). Wildfire looks like a whitewash, whereas Rosco looks white paint.

 

[wdallen504]

Thanks, I saw that wildfire has a transparent version called “invisible clear”. I’ll have to try it.

 

[JW Halloween]

Thanks for doing this test and sharing the results with us - much appreciated.

 

[Terra]

Excellent test procedure! I can attest that it is indeed how the Wildfire paint looks in person to what you have pictured here. I used the heck out of that paint. To me, it is the perfect flexible paint to add a blacklight glow but it is translucent enough that you can look at it in daylight and it's doesn't look strange or stand out. It's almost invisible. But, under blacklight it has an amazing glow!

 

[greatwhite70]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

 

[George Seward]

Because I have too much time on my hands, I bought four brands of white UV paint for comparison:
-- UVfx from Amazon at $1.41 an oz. (8.45 oz. bottle)
-- GloMania from Amazon at $7 an oz. (2 oz. jar)
-- Rosco from B&H Photo at $1.31 an oz. (32 oz. can)
-- Wildfire Optical White from Wildfire Lighting at $2.31 oz. (32 oz. jar)

View attachment 748304

I painted a rough piece of plywood half black and half white with standard paint. Then I painted stripes across the board using the UV paints. Because of the roughness of the board, I used two brushed coats of the UV paint. I also made stripes using a half-and-half mixture of the Wildfire paint with water, and same with the Rosco.

View attachment 748305

The UVfx and GloMania paints were the thinnest. The Rosco was almost like regular white paint, and Wildfire was in between. Again, two coats were used for each stripe.

View attachment 748306

You can see the results for yourself. The photographed colors are fairly true to what I saw with my eyes. UVfx, GloMania and Rosco all had a distinct blueish tint. The Wildfire...not sure how to describe the color...maybe a touch of green? The next photo shows the sample palette along with part of a fake shutter I made using Wildfire paint. I've used Wildfire optical white for several years and am very happy with it, but it's the most expensive of the samples.

View attachment 748307

I used blacklight tubes in a workshop fixture to light the samples. The tubes don't cast any of the purplish background light associated with (cheaper) blacklights having the wrong wavelength. (Yes, the tubes themselves are purplish.)

View attachment 748310

So, in conclusion, your choice might depend on how much you want the paint to stand out in daylight, how much you want to spend, and whether you prefer a more-or-less blueish tint to the "white" when illuminated with blacklight.

Because I have too much time on my hands, I bought four brands of white UV paint for comparison:
-- UVfx from Amazon at $1.41 an oz. (8.45 oz. bottle)
-- GloMania from Amazon at $7 an oz. (2 oz. jar)
-- Rosco from B&H Photo at $1.31 an oz. (32 oz. can)
-- Wildfire Optical White from Wildfire Lighting at $2.31 oz. (32 oz. jar)

View attachment 748304

I painted a rough piece of plywood half black and half white with standard paint. Then I painted stripes across the board using the UV paints. Because of the roughness of the board, I used two brushed coats of the UV paint. I also made stripes using a half-and-half mixture of the Wildfire paint with water, and same with the Rosco.

View attachment 748305

The UVfx and GloMania paints were the thinnest. The Rosco was almost like regular white paint, and Wildfire was in between. Again, two coats were used for each stripe.

View attachment 748306

You can see the results for yourself. The photographed colors are fairly true to what I saw with my eyes. UVfx, GloMania and Rosco all had a distinct blueish tint. The Wildfire...not sure how to describe the color...maybe a touch of green? The next photo shows the sample palette along with part of a fake shutter I made using Wildfire paint. I've used Wildfire optical white for several years and am very happy with it, but it's the most expensive of the samples.

View attachment 748307

I used blacklight tubes in a workshop fixture to light the samples. The tubes don't cast any of the purplish background light associated with (cheaper) blacklights having the wrong wavelength. (Yes, the tubes themselves are purplish.)

View attachment 748310

So, in conclusion, your choice might depend on how much you want the paint to stand out in daylight, how much you want to spend, and whether you prefer a more-or-less blueish tint to the "white" when illuminated with blacklight.

Thank you very much, I intend on making some tombstones in which I will use the Wildfire paint. Appreciate the comparision.

 

[pumpkinheadedskeleton]

Thank you.
I was looking at doing some props with UV paint last fall but everyone was out of stock.
This will help me to spend $$ in a few months.
So.....maybe not thank you....

 

[Engineerchic]

Thank you.
I was looking at doing some props with UV paint last fall but everyone was out of stock.
This will help me to spend $$ in a few months.
So.....maybe not thank you....

If your props are more easily hit with spray paint than brush on, Montana UV Effects is pretty awesome and not crazy money ($11 or so). It goes on clear:

Lighting: - Clear spray paint that really glows!

I do plan to test these with a normal UV flood light. But with a 20W 365nm flood, this is what it looks like. What you are looking at is a skeleton painted with 50/50 Wildfire Optical White (the mix might be more like 1:3 paint:water). The crate and pumpkin were hit with Montana UV Effects...

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