This TikTok Hack Will Help You Safely Blow Out Birthday Candles During The Pandemic

Everyone is talking about the "new normal" after COVID-19 – ways our lives will change forever, thanks to the pandemic. This could include innovations such as contactless menus and payments at restaurants (via Restaurant Hospitality). Face masks may go from grim necessity to bold fashion statement (via Bloomberg). We'll take a hard pass on any no-fun version of "new normal" that bans crowds at sporting events, live theater, or music festivals (via The Philadelphia Inquirer).

On the other hand, some of the safety measures introduced during the pandemic make a lot of sense and don't require any real sacrifice. For example, if no one ever again sprays their germy saliva all over a birthday cake when blowing out candles, that can only be a good thing. A creative thinker has found a way to make blowing out birthday candles safer. Her idea is spreading the way most popular mainstream ideas do these days – via TikTok.

Videos by TikTok user @krystal_rochelle_ usually get viewed less than 1,000 times each. Her birthday candle hack, on the other hand, blew up. The video has been watched more than 216,000 times since it was uploaded on January 8 (via TikTok). It's such a good idea, we hope it keeps spreading.

Rochelle's idea is simple yet effective. Instead of plunging however many birthday candles into the icing, lighting them all, and having the guest of honor blow them out, Rochelle kept the plastic cover on the cake. It may not have occurred to most people before COVID-19, but a birthday boy or girl blankets that cake with their germs when they blow out the candles the regular way. Under this new normal for birthday-candle blowing, the candles are stuck on top of the plastic lid with the help of a little melted wax underneath each one. Rochelle showed in a follow-up TikTok that the candles didn't fall down when they were blown out. 

If your birthday cake is homemade, then you can purchase a birthday-cake shield that a dentist has devised for this very purpose (via Today). In a variation on the COVID-safe birthday hack, another TikTok video shows someone blowing out their candle with a hairdryer.