First off, I'm not a huge glitter fan. But I sure know plenty of people that are, my sparkle rainbow girl for one. But those little fabulous flakes of perfection are usually made of colored plastic covered with something reflective like aluminum, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride (Wikipedia). So when us crafters and performers use them and the little tiny flakes get all over the place they, of course, get into the water supply and topsoil, etc. eventually. This has weighed heavily on my mind for quite some time. Bad enough that a couple times a year my daughter wears glitter on her body for quite a few of her dance performances. She's been Snow Queen in Nutcracker, and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, so yes - lots of glitter on occasion. I end up smiling at her beauty while I inwardly cringe.
She understands why I cringe. I just don't want to bring her down any more than I already have. I feel like I need a warning label sometimes. I can be quite the compendium for what ails our world. It takes a pretty stout positive attitude to survive my barrage sometimes. I’ve always been the do-gooder that really didn’t care too much for social conventions that seem to be ignorant of how much these beautiful acts of social continuity hurt our environment and all the critters in it. Don't be releasing any balloons at my funeral.
One of the things I do when I get spare moment (or not, sometimes I just make time because I can’t stand not knowing), I try to see if there are better solutions out there. And sure enough last fall I found that they make GLASS glitter! YEY, I thought. So I got some! But it’s pretty chunky so it won’t do for finer projects. And I wouldn’t recommend putting it on your body. I would think it would give you a rash kind of like the ones a few kids got from using those Mr. Clean magic eraser blocks on their skin! Which was really just like they had removed the first layer of their skin! Yeouch!
For my masks and pretty little things, I was in the process of moving toward glass because in my book, it is better than plastic. But I wasn’t completely happy. I was searching through Amazon for something else and I can across glitter made from cellulose! It’s completely biodegradable! It’s made for festivals like Burning Man that require no trace be left behind. At it looks great used as make up! There is a company in the UK that is making some and also a few here in the states that you can find online. Even in Amazon, you can find some. Can I have a big YES! For our personal biomes and our blue planet?
I literally can’t wait till I can find a reason to buy it, like yesterday. I have a friend who makes glitter art. Oh yes, and she does amazing murals. Wow. So just like my regular acrylic paint, my regular glitter is going to find a joyous exit from my workshop and I couldn’t be happier.