Stigmatize Glitter

Sparkly eyeshadow, face gems: Holiday makeup is microplastic!

The end of the year is upon us, and with it, all manner of spangly, sparkly holiday party makeup. Chunky glitter eyeshadow. Euphoria-esque face gems. Peel-and-stick rhinestones in the style of a bejeweled Taylor Swift.

Which is to say: It’s a big month for microplastics.

via halfmagicbeauty.com

via @lemonhead.la

Yes, for those who don’t know, “glitter” is a nice-sounding way to say “polyethylene terephthalate” and “acrylic” gems, jewels, and rhinestones are technically “polymethyl methacrylate” gems, jewels, and rhinestones. These materials are plastic.

The big problem with plastic, as I’m sure you do know, is that it’s made from fossil fuels. It lasts forever. It does not break down. Instead, over hundreds of years, it breaks up into microplastic particles, which go on to infiltrate water, air, soil, animals, and even human bodies — a “final communion with our own garbage,” as Mark O’Connell puts it in a New York Times Opinion piece — and negatively affect the health of people and the planet forevermore.

The big problem with glitter is that it already is microplastic, so it has these “apocalyptic” effects on the earth and its inhabitants in real time. Microplastic pollution is such an issue that in 2015, the United States banned microbeads, a subset of microplastics, “to address concerns about … the water supply,” per the Food & Drug Administration. Alas! Due to a loophole, the ban only applies to products “intended to be used to exfoliate or cleanse the body.” Microplastic makeup remains in production.

Scientists have been calling for a ban on cosmetic glitter for years. The European Union recently put a limited ban in place. Barring federal action in the U.S. — please contact your legislators! — we have but one thing to do, I think: Stigmatize glitter.

Make it uncool, even upsetting, to produce! Inundate cosmetic companies with emails about their complicity in the climate crisis! Leave them social media comments equating manufacturing glitter with trashing the planet! (It worked with Glossier Play: In 2019, the Glossier diffusion line agreed to reformulate its plastic Glitter Gelée with “biodegradable” glitter based on customer feedback, and later shuttered thanks to lack of customer support.)

Stigmatize in social settings! Recoil as your friend’s face gems reflect the light! (Just kidding, kind of.) Or, for a gentler approach, simply swap the word “glitter” for “plastic” in conversation. (“Oh, are you wearing the Anastasia Beverly Hills Norvina Loose Plastic?” you might ask a polyethylene terephthalate-adorned acquaintance. Or perhaps, under a video of an influencer sporting Half Magic Self-Adhesive Face Crystals: “Hmm, what an interesting time to promote press-on microplastics… Is this supposed to be an ironic commentary on the rapidly escalating climate crisis or something? You know you can’t actually produce or consume anything ironically, right? Because production and consumption have the same collective consequences regardless of individual intention??”)

Stigmatize the “but everything is plastic” argument! Glitter is different! It serves its purpose for hours at most and becomes waste almost immediately — washed down the drain, wiped off with a tissue and tossed in the bin. It’s also just very annoying? It sheds, it spreads, it ends up everywhere, it forces many people to deal with one person’s decision to wear it (a microcosm of the littering-the-planet-with-microplastic macrocosm).

Stigmatize relying on glitter, or any particular cosmetic, to express oneself or celebrate! (Honestly, imagine hinging one’s idea of expression or celebration on environmental destruction? Embarrassing!)

I should add that not all that shimmers is microplastic. That finer, more subtle sort of sparkle usually comes from mica, a natural ingredient with its own set of concerns. (Mica is sometimes harvested via child labor, and because of the murky nature of cosmetic supply chains, it’s difficult for brands to ensure the the mica they use is mined ethically. Remember back in July, when a representative for NYX Cosmetics declined to tell me whether or not the mica in the official NYX x Barbie Mini Palettes was produced by children?) Then there’s plant-based cellulose glitter, which is — under ideal conditions (ha!) — biodegradable. Still, a 2020 study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials found these materials to have negative effects on ecosystems in rivers and lakes, too. There is, in all likelihood, no such thing as “eco-friendly” glitter.

(And—! Even if there were such a thing! One could argue that popularizing non-plastic glitter will inevitably popularize plastic glitter — a more widely available, less expensive way to get the look — as is the nature of trends.)

I don’t care, you may counter. I deserve to feel good in my New Year’s Eve glitter! I just gotta sparkle, shimmer, and shine! I get it. I sometimes have the same internal debate. And then, as I catch myself justifying centuries of carcinogenic seepage for a few short hours with a face that bounces a few more light rays, I think: Is this the microplastics talking? (There’s evidence they may affect the brain.)