What You Should Know About Glitter

It’s old. Very, very old.
I assumed that glitter was invented some time within the Victorian era, most likely for the sole function of gaudying-up sentimental greeting cards. However glitter is way older than I ever guessed.
Some time around 40,000 B.C., historic people started dusting sparkly crushed minerals over their cave paintings. As early as the sixth century A.D., Mayans have been adding glitter made of mica to their temple walls, in keeping with National Geographic. And in 2010, the BBC reported that reflective material was discovered combined in with what's believed to be the residue of 50,000-year-old Neanderthal cosmetics.

It’s not made of metal.
Aluminum, perhaps tin: That’s what I believed glitter was made of. Nope. Modern glitter was invented in 1934 in New Jersey, of all places, when American machinist Henry Ruschmann figured out a solution to grind plastic into glitter. Eventually the raw materials developed into polyester film layered with coloring and reflective materials "fed by means of a rotary knife slicing system … form of a mix of a paper shredder and a wood chipper," according to glitter manufacturer Joe Coburn. Before that, glitter was made of glass. Not something you’d want to eat.

It’s everywhere.
Tons of glitter are produced yearly (literally, tons). There are 20,000 types of glitter available from pioneer glitter-makers Meadowbrook Inventions alone, ranging from the run-of-the-mill craft glitter you remember from kindergarten to "special effects" glitter for industrial applications. It can be as high-quality as mud or as chunky as confetti. As glitter manufacturer Coburn remarked on Reddit in 2014, an order of "2 tons a month is a very small dimension
You possibly can see a wholesale glitter suppliers-making machine in motion right here — it’s disturbingly environment friendly at reducing thin sheets of polyester film into gleaming little grains. Glitter isn’t biodegradable and most people don’t recycle it. So it’s not going anywhere.

You can eat it.
Hold on! You'll be able to’t eat just any glitter. It must be edible glitter, a hip new condiment that gained fame on Instagram in 2017. For the reason that first twinkling pictures showed up, it’s made an appearance on everything from donuts to bagels to pizza.
In the interest of serious academic analysis, I imagine it’s essential that I examine and consume edible glitter. What's it made of? When was it invented? Most important of all, what would happen if somebody baked it right into a cake and ate it?