--- title: Germ-Free Method for Blowing out Birthday Candles: Video description: A way to have your cake and eat it, too canonical: https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-20T19:50:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:33:31.610Z og:title: Here's a Germ-Free Method for Extinguishing Birthday Candles og:description: A way to have your cake and eat it, too og:url: https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's a Germ-Free Method for Extinguishing Birthday Candles twitter:description: A way to have your cake and eat it, too twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Here's a Germ-Free Method for Extinguishing Birthday Candles by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jun 20, 2016 7:50 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jun 20, 2016 7:50 PM UTC Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake is a time-honored tradition that most of us don’t pause to think about. You blow out the candles before the fire burns your life-sized [Jennifer Lawrence cake,](http://time.com/3574256/jennifer-lawrence-katniss-cake/?iid=sr-link5) your [pizza cake](http://time.com/2902046/this-pizza-cake-looks-so-much-more-delicious-than-a-regular-birthday-cake/?iid=sr-link2) or your hand-made by [Chris Hemsworth cake](http://time.com/4322840/chris-hemsworth-daughter-birthday-cake/?iid=sr-link1) to the ground. Not this guy, though. The father in this video posted by [Vindog Unleashed](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ2HaFQNpXLQpFvm4v9Vz9w) has clearly thought about what it means to blow out the candles on a birthday cake—and he does not care for it one bit. But this man is clearly not one to sit and pout over spit-upon birthday cake. Instead he devised an ingenious solution that let’s him have his cake and eat it too. It’s unlikely that his simple method would work on every cake, though. For instance, [this cake](http://time.com/4276343/birthday-cake-made-of-matches-burns-down/?iid=sr-link2) might take more than just a wave of the hand to extinguish. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/"},"headline":"Here's a Germ-Free Method for Extinguishing Birthday Candles","datePublished":"2016-06-20T19:50:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:33:31.610Z","description":"A way to have your cake and eat it, too","url":"https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Viral Videos","cake","food and drink"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4374994/birthday-candles-germ-free/","name":"Here's a Germ-Free Method for Extinguishing Birthday Candles"}}]}] ```