Once just the domain of toys and children’s stickers, the glow-in-the-dark industry has now matured into serious business, and Ennis, Texas-based Techno Glow Products is largely responsible for the transition.
The distributor of glow-in-the-dark paints and pigment powders sells more than two dozen colors that sport the photon-releasing properties of the non-toxic elements that make glow-in-the-dark items possible. Over the last eleven years since its inception, the company has even pushed what’s possible with glow-in-the-dark into unprecedented reds, pinks and purples, working with suppliers to expand glow-in-the-dark items beyond the faint lime-green of the past.
“Back in the day, you used to only get green. But, now we have about 25 different colors,” says Bok Steynberg, co-owner of Techno Glow Products. “Red is very popular.”
Also a recent development, the duration that the paints and powders glow has been ramped up. Twenty years ago, a glow-in-the-dark item might have dimly glowed after being charged by exposure to light for ten minutes, 15 at the most.
“We’ve got some glow-in-the-dark powders that will actually glow for up to 40 hours,” Steynberg says.
And that advancement in glow duration is what’s put glow-in-the-dark tapes and paints into the building codes of a growing number of cities around the world. Outlining staircases, steps and doorways, glow-in-the-dark products can save lives in a dark burning building where people need to get out fast.
“For example, Dallas has a new [building] code; if you have a building of a certain height, you need to have at glow-in-the-dark exit strategy,” Steynberg says. “Your staircases need to have a glow strip on each step. Your handrails needs to glow in the dark, your door frames have to glow in the dark. And that’s all for safety purposes. If the lights were to go out or something were to happen, then at least people can find their way out.”
Still, though, the vast majority of the roughly 25,000 orders that the company ships around the globe every year go to artists, jewelry makers and hobbyists who incorporate glow-in-the-dark paints and pigments into their craft. Glowing rings have become popular, and some sell for as much as several thousand dollars each. Keychains, toys, and drink tumblers are also popular. Some adventurous remodelers have mixed glow-in-the-dark pigments into tile grout in homes, and glow-in-the-dark epoxy tabletops and countertops are trending in D.I.Y. circles.
For artists, glow-in-the-dark paints can add a new dimension to a piece. Steynberg has received several photos from painters who’ve made their work luminous even when the lights are out. City leaders in one quiet Australian town have had a large mural of an owl painted on a grain silo just to attract a little tourism, Steynberg says.
Born in South Africa to a farming family, Steynberg migrated to the U.S. and became an I.T. consultant for A.T.&T. in the early 2000s. A friend of his acquainted him with the idea of glow-in-the-dark pigments, which Steynberg initially brushed off as a mere fad among ravers. But the concept stuck with him, and once he saw the safety potential for glow-in-the-dark products, he left his corporate career and launched Techno Glow Products in Minnesota in 2011. Cold winters were a risk for products that could not be allowed to freeze, and Steynberg eventually teamed up with a business partner from North Texas, so by 2018, the company moved to Ennis where the winters are warm and shipping to the East and West Coasts is more expedited.
Since its inception, Techno Glow Products has also expanded its inventory to photochromic pigments that change color depending light exposure and thermochromic pigments that change color with heat. The glow-in-the darks products, though, are the most popular Techno Glow products and have been gaining traction as word gets out about their superior luminosity and durability and as the art of incorporating glow-in-the-dark qualities into a variety of applications has trended upward.
“During the last five to seven years, people are really now learning that these products are available, and they want to do anything and everything with them,” Steynberg says.
