Those nights we've come home after a break-up, grabbed a pint of ice cream and gobbled it in the dark while listening to sad songs need not be the messiest of binges, because now you can drown your sorrows in glow-in-the-dark ice cream.
Be careful where you dribble, folks.
An Australian pop-up ice cream cart, 196 Below, has started serving glow-in-the-dark ice cream, including a dairy-free, preservative-free and vegan option, according to Fairfax Media in New Zealand. Neon Nitro Ice Cream is frozen using liquid nitrogen and its out-of-this-world glow comes from a chemical named fluorescein that is usually used for medical diagnosis and air rescues. The FluoroColors' food dye is certified non-toxic by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Where did this idea come from? "I used to be a dance party child in the 1990s and early 2000s and I used to make party clothes out of neon material," co-owner Steve Felice told the Daily Mail, Fairfax Media reported. (The link to the Daily Mail's article was not functioning at the time of HNGN's publication).
The luminescent frozen treat comes in three flavors: raspberry, pine-lime and mango passion fruit and sells for $8.80 NZD (about $6.62 USD). The rave-worthy ice cream was unveiled on Feb. 21 at White Night.
"White Night's a bit like unlocking the door to the artists' studios and letting them run free," Melbourne's Creative Director Andrew Walsh told Broadsheet. "We're an unusual city, certainly unique in Australia, and we have a great sense of who we are."
For the festivities, Felice and co-owner Glenn Storey concocted the neon confection. "We always try to think outside the box for each event we do," said Felice, "For White Night we wanted to play with people's minds."
Clarification: According to 196 Below, not all ice cream is vegan and dairy-free - only the sorbet.
