What you want to find out about glitter

It’s old. Very, very old.

I assumed that glitter was invented some time in the Victorian era, probably for the only real objective of gaudying-up sentimental greeting cards. But glitter is far older than I ever guessed.

A while around 40,000 B.C., ancient people started dusting sparkly crushed minerals over their cave paintings. As early as the sixth century A.D., Mayans were adding glitter made of mica to their temple partitions, based on National Geographic. And in 2010, the BBC reported that reflective material was discovered blended in with what’s believed to be the residue of 50,000-12 months-old Neanderthal cosmetics.

It’s not made of metal.

Aluminum, possibly 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 strategy to grind plastic into glitter. Finally the raw materials developed into polyester film layered with coloring and reflective material «fed through a rotary knife cutting system … type 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 need to eat.

It’s everywhere.

Tons of glitter are produced yearly (actually, tons). There are 20,000 types of glitter available from pioneer glitter-makers Meadowbrook Innovations alone, starting from the run-of-the-mill craft glitter you keep in mind from kindergarten to «special effects» glitter for industrial applications. It may be as positive as dust or as chunky as confetti. As glitter manufacturer Coburn remarked on Reddit in 2014, an order of «2 tons a month is a really small measurement

You possibly can see a glitter-making machine in action 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’ll be able to eat it.

Hold on! You’ll be able to’t eat just any glitter. It has to be edible glitter, a hip new condiment that gained fame on Instagram in 2017. Since the first twinkling photos showed up, it’s made an appearance on everything from donuts to bagels to pizza.

Within the interest of great academic analysis, I believe it’s essential that I investigate and eat edible glitter. What is it made of? When was it invented? Most vital of all, what would occur if somebody baked it into a cake and ate it?