![]() ![]() People’s livelihoods depend on it as well. ![]() “Not all mica companies are involved in exploiting children. It is, he promises, just as sparkly as normal glitter.īut lab-grown mica is not a solution that Jakub Sobik, a spokesman for Anti-Slavery International, hopes all the corporate giants take up. His product, he says, replaces PET with cellulose that comes from tree or plant matter, mainly eucalyptus. ![]() Does he like the stuff? “It’s OK,” he says. Stephen Cotton is the chemical engineer who helped create Bio-glitter, the more environmentally friendly alternative sold by Lamanna. “We started trading in April,” she says, “and the interest in our glitter has grown exponentially.” Then, about a year ago, she and her best friend set up a company called Eco Glitter Fun. She became a glitter activist, telling anyone who would listen about its dirty little secret. “Finding out that glitter, something that we absolutely love and own tons of, was plastic, was heartbreaking,” she recalls. Noemi Lamanna uses glitter every day and she is worried about it. “If it’s being glued on to a greeting card, I’m less worried about it.” That your glittery Christmas card is causing no immediate risk to mackerel won’t make the task of hoovering its flecks out of your carpet more fun, but it is something. “If it’s being used in a rinse-off product, then you think: why does it need to be there?” Thompson says. Glitter probably represents only a tiny proportion of the plastic waste entering our environment compared with, say, the amount of food and drink packaging left on beaches. While it is important to reduce any emissions of plastic into our environment, he says, “it’s about getting these things in perspective”. But surely even the UK ban leaves a lot of sparkle that could find its way into the sea (and our scampi)? For Dr Richard Thompson, a marine biologist at the University of Plymouth who led a research project in 2016 that found microplastic in a third of UK-caught fish, when it comes to glitter, there’s cause for “concern rather than alarm”. A similar ban in the US in 2015 applied only to exfoliants. While “there is currently no evidence specifically on glitter being bad for the environment”, according to Alice Horton, a research associate at the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, “it is likely that studies on glitter would show similar results to those on other microplastics”.Įarlier this month, the UK outlawed microbeads in makeup and personal care products, including the type of glitter used in some rinse-off cosmetics. With most glitter being made from etched aluminium bonded to polyethylene terephthalate (PET), it is a form of microplastic, which can find its way into our oceans and the creatures that call them home. Concerns about plastic pollution in our seas led one group of nurseries in the south of England to prohibit the use of glitter by 2,500 children before Christmas, while others, such as the New Zealand-based social scientist Dr Trisia Farrelly, called for a ban on plastic glitter altogether. Recently, however, glitter has caught most flak for being environmentally unfriendly. It was glitter’s year for letting its hair down.Ī model during Ashish Gupta’s show at London fashion week in 2017. An app called Kirakira+, which makes Instagram posts look like the insides of snow globes, became a vital accessory for the fashion set, from makeup artist Pat McGrath to model Bella Hadid. In the digital realm, a glitter tongue trend swept Instagram sparking concerns about people swallowing it, while artist Sara Shakeel went viral for Photoshop collages in which she embellished stretch marks with glitter. At London fashion week, designer Ashish Gupta sent one model down the catwalk in a top that read: “More glitter, less Twitter,” a pointed jab at Donald Trump. Teen Vogue gave tips on how to be the “new extra-glittery you” for New Year’s Eve, from transforming your hair with sparkly roots to “disco ball” eyelids. New York magazine’s fashion title, the Cut, declared: “In 2017, there’s no such thing as too much twinkle.” The managers of one London pub agreed, adding glitter to its Christmas dinner gravy and declaring it the “perfect way to spread festive cheer”. Last year was the best of times and the worst of times for glitter. ![]()
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