UV dangers question

[gcbryan]

I'm a little unclear of the exact dangers of UV light. I understand you shouldn't stare into a UV light and that at the lower end of the UV spectrum it's especially bad but what about all the fluorescent "black lights" out there? They are sold as lights to light up wall posters and to look for "cat pee" and such!

There are no warnings on the box from those and the word UV isn't even mentioned. How much protection is needed for a UV keychain light of the type used at night clubs or to check for counterfeit money?

For instance with the fluorescent black lights you can see the light so at least part of the emitter spectrum isn't UV.

Can anyone put this into perspective for me? Again, what I'm specifically interested is the dangers of small keychain UV lights.

 

[FRITZHID]

those lights are UV but fairly harmless to human eyes, i would not suggest staring into a HID or Laser version of these light, but common blacklights won't hurt your eyes any.