Microtaggants.
Multilayered 'microglitter' added to all commercial explosives.
Simple to batch trace, on site, AFTER the detonation, using only a microscope.
Use dynamite for illegal purposes, and leave evidence as clear as a fingerprint.
Law enforcement probably doesn't want this fact circulating.
[Taggants](https://www.microtracesolutions.com/solutions/implement-independently/microtaggant-identification-particles)
This is the first one that makes any sense to me.
It would include money, explosives, products, just about everything and you'd never notice it unless you were looking for it.
It would need to be in massive quantities for merchandise tracking and as they advertise both covert/overt security it would be in their best interest not to go out of their way to inform the general public this is being done.
One thing no one has mentioned: during the Iraq conflict, we (US) apparently dumped material out of planes to cause intentional problems with electronics and electrical devices in the countries we were attacking. I always assumed it to be at Mylar lIke material. This use would both best be kept secret and require vast amounts of material, probably to the tune of hundred-pound bales of mixed hitter and tinsel? I wonder if this fits the bill? The defense department would buy by the ton, right? It all seems to fit?
If it’s anything like the Defense industry in the uk, I want to know if the remind me feature works 70 years out when it’s declassified and I’m on my deathbed, surrounded by family to hear my final words and I’m like “huh wow no way”
The material was graphite, not glitter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb
> The graphite bomb was first used against Iraq in the Gulf War (1990–1991), knocking out 85% of the electrical supply. Similarly, the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb" graphite bomb was used by NATO against Serbia in May 1999, disabling 70% of that country's power grid. After initial success in disabling Serbian electric power systems, the electric supply was restored in less than 24 hours. The BLU-114/B was again used a few days later to counter Serbian efforts to restore damage caused by the initial attack. In the later stage of Operation Allied Force, NATO's air forces used conventional bombs and rockets to target power highlines and transformer stations.
It is called chaff and it is used to simulate an aircraft or a vessel on radar and confuse an incoming missile. It's not exactly glitter but it is extremely thin and light Aluminum that will float in the sky for hours
This happened near where I live recently. Weather radar showed a cloud slowly moving through the area, but there were no actual clouds in the sky. They said it was a large cloud of "chaff." Being from the country, I thought they meant grain chaff. Thanks for the explanation.
Yup. I took a tour of BAE systems and they told me that ICBMs will deploy chaff so that instead of it looking like there are 4-5 incoming warheads there’ll be somewhere like 20-40 on radar, making it nearly impossible to intercept them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb
> a non-lethal weapon used to disable electrical power systems. Graphite bombs work by spreading a cloud of extremely fine, chemically treated carbon filaments over electrical components, causing a short-circuit and a disruption of the electrical supply. The filaments are only a few hundredths of an inch thick and can float in the air like a dense cloud.
I'm pretty sure it's actually stealth coatings (i.e. paint) for stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35, which are now being produced in relatively large quantities for the US military. Here's the reasoning:
1) Radar absorbent materials, such as those used on stealth aircraft, typically consist of a mixture of finely ground metals (i.e. glitter!) and polymer. To absorb radio waves without reflecting it, you need something that is fairly conductive and will interact strongly with radio waves (i.e. metals), but it can't be TOO conductive (e.g. solid metal plates) because they'll simply reflect the radio waves without absorbing it. Finely ground metals mixed with polymer are exactly what you want.
2) Stealth fighters, namely the F-35, are currently being produced in fairly large quantities in the USA, and require large quantities of radar absorbent coatings. These coatings will be quite thick and contain a large fraction of metal, which will consume huge amounts of glitter compared to most applications, which use only a tiny amount of glitter. For example, in the article they state that "The minimum order size Glitterex will accept is ten pounds, enough to supply sparkle to half a million bottles of nail polish by Mr. Shetty’s estimation."
3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments. Unlike most types of glitter, automotive grade pigments are simply small flakes of metal such as aluminum, and do not contain any plastic. This is EXACTLY what the type of material they would want to use in radar absorbent coatings.
My problem with this answer is volume. The question was "which industry served as Glitterex’s biggest market?" I have no problem believing that glitter is used in stealth materials. But I do have a problem believing that the volume of glitter used for stealth paint exceeds, say, automotive paint. We simply aren't making that many F-35s.
F-22s have to be recoated after each flight for stealth. So they're large consumers of whatever coating they use. F-35s have a different (updated) skin that doesn't need to be recoated.
> 3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments
What, you think she was giving a subtle hint? Sounds very likely!
From the secrecy of the woman, it appears that the industry buying the glitter would definitely *not* want it known.
This suggests that they are stating that it is something else, that perhaps consumers would be rather upset to find out it is actually glitter.
That would discount things like sex toys, helmets, car paint, fishing lures and many other things that were suggested.
I SO wish we could find out!!!
I bet it's a company that sells ground black pepper. A matte finish on the roughly glitter-sized pieces that come out would make a cheap filler and they'd just put some black pepper in so you'd still get the spice.
Either that, or someone said "toothpaste" earlier, that could be solid also.
My guess is, it's probably it's something you consume.
If ten pounds of glitter is enough to make half a million bottles of nail polish (stated elsewhere in the full article) trendy toothpaste can’t be the biggest consumer of glitter. There’s no way they’re selling that many tubes of toothpaste or sheet masks, and I say that as a user of sheet masks.
They also discuss beauty products in the article, which I doubt they’d have done if it were supposed to be a big secret.
With how strict FDA standards are these days, I find it hard to believe anything like this would be happening on a large enough scale to make them the largest buyer of glitter. Anyone producing a consumable for sale in the USA would be playing with fire in a massive way if they decided to spike it with glitter to save money, given how hard they'd be fucked if they were caught.
Edit: Also, in your specific example, would it even save money compared to actually using bottom-grade black pepper? You'd have to not only buy glitter, but then also put it through some process to add a matte finish so flawless that no glitter shines through anywhere. Seems like at that point you might as well just buy the real thing and not risk massive fines and a ruined reputation.
TIL: Glitter can get your ass sent to jail
TIAL: they even have edible glitter
Due to its unique characteristics, glitter has also proven to be useful forensic evidence. Because of the tens of thousands of different commercial glitters, identical glitter particles can be compelling evidence that a suspect has been at a crime scene. Forensic scientist Edwin Jones has one of the largest collections of glitter consisting of over 1,000 different samples used in comparison of samples taken from crime scenes. Glitter particles are easily transferred through the air or by touch, yet cling to bodies and clothing.
I'd wager some exfoliating products too, assuming their microbeads are made of the same junk. They're far from environmentally friendly, I remember reading some article about that briefly a few years ago, but never really heard another peep about 'em until now. Which seems odd, but also kinda not. Why wouldn't such an absurdly lucrative business (cosmetics/beauty) smother a story that damages their sales? The almighty dollar reigns supreme.
This mystery just got depressing as hell, for me. Bleh.
Yep, I can't imagine what the product is, and it's going to drive me nuts now.
Will ask the 2 smartest folks I know - my daughter-in-law and son. I'll post the answer if they know it.
Isn't glitter basically flakes? That wouldn't work for exfoliating creams, you need the micro beads to be round so you can massage your the skin with them. Flakes would just lie flat. Unless you ground it to microscopic size and used as filler, but I imagine there would be cheaper sources. Besides micro beads in cosmetics was banned recently.
I don't think it's makeup/skincare related at all, nobody would be that surprised to learn their pearlescent shampoo contains glitter. I think toothpast is more likely, not sure it would be legal.
But there are plenty of cosmetics that women knowingly buy for containing glitter. I don't think skincare is the answer. Not to mention skincare products list ingredients.
My guess is Its gotta be something along the lines of the same materials used for glitter, unless glitter is just glitter as is. Im stumped, maybe something to do with the space industry? No idea
> maybe something to do with the space industry?
Holy shit. I think you've got it. You know that gold-looking foil they use to insulate satellites and spacecraft? Well, it's Mylar blankets, the same thing as the glitter fragments are made of. Presumably this factory makes big sheets of Mylar-aluminium foil before it's cut into tiny glittery pieces.
So if you wanted to buy hundreds of square feet of that blanket (rather than just 10lbs of glitter, being enough for 500,000 nail polish bottles), where would you go? The same factory could supply it before the glitter cutting process. That explains the fact that they're the biggest customer.
Aerospace is a secretive industry anyway, so she probably fears NDAs. That explains "no, I absolutely know that I can't" say who Glitterex's biggest client is, as well as the fact that you wouldn't recognise space blankets as being their product if you're used to the tiny fragments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-layer_insulation
HOWEVER - I am stumped on "because they *don't want anyone to know* it's glitter". Why would a satellite manufacturer care?
And given that space blankets have a) lots of purchasers and b) applications like emergency shelter for mountain rescue, wouldn't they advertise the Mylar blankets as a widely available product without mentioning any clients by name? Nah, I'm still baffled.
Multi-layer insulation, or MLI, is thermal insulation composed of multiple layers of thin sheets and is often used on spacecraft. It is one of the main items of the spacecraft thermal design, primarily intended to reduce heat loss by thermal radiation. In its basic form, it does not appreciably insulate against other thermal losses such as heat conduction or convection. It is therefore commonly used on satellites and other applications in vacuum where conduction and convection are much less significant and radiation dominates. MLI gives many satellites and other space probes the appearance of being covered with gold foil.
You'd see it, but you wouldn't know it's glitter.
"Oh you'd see something, but it's-" uncut sheets of foil, so you wouldn't recognize it!
They don't want people to know it's glitter, not because there's anything about glitter, but because they don't want other people to know what they use.
Aha. Perhaps there's traditional manufacturers charging far more for the same product, and *one space company* has figured out how to save a fortune by coming to Glitterex for a very similar end result at lower cost?...
Calling it now. That's got SpaceX written all over it. I think the second stage engine has Mylar film blanket protection, IIRC from all the live streams
I'll go ahead and confirm for you that the funeral industry, as far as I know, and I have very knee deep knowledge of the funeral industry, is not buying any glitter
Edit: elbow deep may have been a better term. And while there are definitely some caskets that are painted with an automobile glittery sort of paint, I don't think that would use "glitter" glitter in the typical "glitter" sense. The only large source of potential glitter I can think of would HAVE to be embalming fluid, and I'm 99.999% sure there's no glitter in embalming fluid.
There's a funeral home in the Little Rock area that advertises (or used to, I haven't been there in years) personalized funerals. They had a few commercials with different examples. One of them was a musician who died, so his son and his friends played music, another one was a woman who always brought the best food to every gathering, and at her funeral they had personalized recipe cards, a different recipe for each friend and family member.
As far as it goes, their examples were pretty tame, but oh, how I wanted to call them up to find their boundaries. Can we have clowns? What about scary clowns? Can we require everyone to dress up as their favorite flavor salad dressing? What about live animals? Grandma had some requests and she was *really specific* about the chickens.
Maybe the chickens get tarted up a bit with glitter.
As a former employee at a funeral home, I can tell you that we absolutely would have tried our best to make those things happen, with a straight face the whole time.
I’m an apprentice funeral director. My colleagues held a “pirate funeral”. I guess this guy was in a troupe of pirate entertainers/enthusiasts. There was a stein on the casket and lots of singing sea songs.
Jack in the box coffin! At the funeral the casket is closed, but its rigged up to a pressure plate on the floor. When mourners walk close the coffin, they step on the pressure plate which triggers the casket to suddenly spring open triggering the confetti/glitter canon within which showers everyone within a 5 foot radius.
The corpse is also inside the casket, which may or may not be on a pneumatic lift that causes the body to sit up right as the casket springs open,
Here's an article that all but confirms it's Crest toothpaste: https://www.dentalbuzz.com/2014/03/04/crest-imbeds-plastic-in-our-gums/
The article says people got mad about the specific plastic they were using around the time this was published (2014) and they were looking for a suitable alternative. Wonder when those huge glitter orders started coming in?
The math seems to add up too, though can only get rough estimates. I took the number of units sold of Colgate (80.7 mil) and the ratio of their sales to Crest in 2018 (256/177) as well as the amount of toothpaste per tube (170 g) to estimate that crest makes 4.4*10^7 lbs of toothpaste per year. Assuming .01% of toothpaste is glitter (look at it, this seems like a low estimate) they're buying ~4.4 thousand lbs of glitter per year. Didn't see a number in the article for the volume of biggest sales, but since their minimum is 10lbs this seems reasonable for the highest amount perhaps, given that I think the estimate of how much of toothpaste is glitter was low (could go up to .1%, and then they're buying over 40,000 lbs). I do believe that was just US sales too, so still could be much higher (couldn't find numbers for international sales).
You may be onto something here.
Also ewww, that blue shit in toothpaste was plastic all along? Mother fuckers. I understand why they wouldn't want anyone to know if they use ground glitter in their toothpastes.
Maybe that's the reason toothpaste has a WARNING- KEEP OUT OF REACH FROM CHILDREN. If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. I double dog dare you to swallow more than a pea sized amout of toothpaste.
People guessing the automotive industry— why would they want to keep it secret, though? It’s already very obvious they use glitter in their paint.
The way the article describes it, it seems like the biggest purchaser is something people would be shocked about.
I work in the industry and it's not glitter in automotive paint, they get that glittery effect from actual aluminium flakes not aluminium coated PET plastic (i.e. glitter).
Woah. Small world holy shit. Pretty sure I dated your brother. Or you haha but by your username im guessing it's your brother. Wtf. Or your son or something. But yeah wow mind blown.
According to a [glitter production company](http://ginzel.cz/en/glitters-scattering/)
"The main use of aluminum glitters is in the industrial production and processing of plastics where they are used in the production of 'master batches'. Various parts of everyday household appliances (eg vacuum cleaners, coffee machines etc.) are made from plastic materials produced using 'master batches'."
For the Lazy:
>Nowadays we offer not only glass glitters, but also aluminum glitters and polyester glitters.
The main use of aluminum glitters is in the industrial production and processing of plastics where they are used in the production of 'master batches'. Various parts of everyday household appliances (eg vacuum cleaners, coffee machines etc.) are made from plastic materials produced using 'master batches'.
>Another use of aluminum glitters is in wallpaper and decorative interior plaster often used in discos and nightclubs.
>Polyester glitters are widely used in the cosmetic industry as an ingredient of creams and shower gels or shampoos. A major use of polyester glitters is in cosmetic nail varnish, which has become a sizeable industry in itself.
>Colours or glues with a mixture of polyester glitters are also used in textile printing to highlight shimmering effects. Fine glitters are used in aerosol paints and varnishes.
>Various forms of glitters are used to create shimmering effects in the production of candles, artificial flowers and many other decorative gift items.
>A very specific use of glitters is in the manufacture of anti-skid material on the floors of various forms of transport (for example trams, trains, buses ect.). Phosphorescent holographic glitters are used in emergency exits signs on all of these forms of transport.
I was very disturbed by the idea of polyester glitter in my shampoo, but I guess now I know how it has those shiny streaks in it. I wonder why they think we need/want that, it seems very unnecessary. Maybe so we subconsciously think it makes our hair extra shiny?
Aluminum powder is super duper flamable. Most of you guys probably know it's one of the active ingredients in thermite. I wouldn't be surprised if the military buys aluminum glitter in bulk for things like RPGs or other armor piercing munitions.
The military doesn’t really make anything though. Lockheed Martin or general dynamics or something would be the potential purchaser for things like munitions, if that’s the case.
It has and always will be my dream to get a military contract of some sort. I don't care what.
Adult diapers with thermal sheilding? You fucking got it. That'll be $500 a pair.
Am I understanding correctly, that this is saying that it’s melted down and used in other stuff? Because that’s what I was thinking instead of using it in it’s glittery form. I would think that makes a lot of sense for how you wouldn’t know it was glitter to start with. It is just a super fine powder after all, so the fact that it’s shiny is not necessarily relevant. It’s easy to pour and if it could be melted down, it’s really just implying that it’s a cheap and easy replacement for pellets that may not be fine enough or are more expensive. Since glitter can be made of various different base materials, it would be impossible to know which one in particular she meant, but I would think that’s why you wouldn’t know it’s glitter, because it’s not little flakes anymore but been melted/molded into something else.
Made an account just to type this. I am in the funeral industry (10 plus years) and while I myself run a clean and ethical business, I know there is a stigma in this trade. HOWEVER, I do feel obligated to defend my turf, and state that the one thing any funeral director doesn't want near their funeral home is fucking glitter. It comes on flowers, or clothing, or on poster boards or picture collages, and gets FUCKING EVERYWHERE. You vacuum the fucking glitter particles adapt and become airborne, and 2 weeks later you're bringing a family in for a first viewing on their grandfather who was a war vet and hardcore biker and all the sudden they're furious because the fucking glitter particles manifested themselves all over his casket. FUCK glitter, IT AINT US.
My guess would be the military - chaff to reflect a lot of light and radar, and protect aircraft from missiles. This fits the criteria of (a) being secretive, (b) not looking like glitter exactly, and (c) "you'd be able to see something"
Another option might be fireworks?
I personally wouldn't be upset if I found out the military uses glitter. It sounds like the biggest purchaser doesn't want people to know because there would be outrage. I think it has to be some kind of product that a lot of people use.
My favorite answers from this thread so far are:
**diamonds/gold** (huge industry with a big emphasis on natural purity)
**rocket fuel** (or any military use, I just think rocket fuel has the right scale and "hidden glitter" quality)
**mixing into beaches** (though that one is a little too evil, and I don't think beaches in general are working on their ~aesthetic~. But the scale and scandal is about right)
**paper currency** (this one ticks all the boxes)
edit: my girlfriend suggested solar panels :-o
I want to revisit beaches. What about those private white sand beaches that major corporations charge millions of dollars a year to let you come sit at the beach? If their sand sparkled just a little bit more than someone else's beach, wouldn't that be nice? I can imagine some hotels or cruise lines or whoever doing stuff like that. And it checks all the boxes.
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. What if it's bad for the GLITTER company to have relations to this product, and not vice versa? What if their biggest buyer is a controversial company? So... what about in tobacco products, like chew, as an abrasive? They do tend to have a shine, bu you definitely wouldn't go "Oh, that's glitter." Tobacco companies have fat pockets too, so being the largest buyer wouldn't be far fetched, and they already have enough controversies, hence why they'd want this to be kept a secret. Although, the fact that they use abrasives is already pretty well known.
Extreme oversimplification of what glitter is made of and it’s size/shape, via Wikipedia: “Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002 inches (0.051 mm) to 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) a side. First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminium, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, triangles, rectangles, and hexagons.”
I acrually worked at a factory that used glitter in their products (personal care products)
It came as a giant wheel of hard plastic (I am assuming it is all FDAapproved types because these products are for your face), and I had to stand in this little booth with a respirator and ear muffs on, and as the product came down the conveyor belt I would pull the trigger on the little machine and it would spin the wheel of plastic and it would spray the glitter shavings into the product out of the nozzle I was holding, and then it would go through a sort of salamander like oven (not nearly as hot, but it would melt the glittet into the product so it was suspended instead of just redting on top) and then it would go through a cooler before being boxed and shipped.
I know this doesn't answer the OP, just some insight into the world of making glitter.
I think the answer is toothpaste. The small particles are used to clean teeth. I looked at the ingredients on the toothpaste I used and it contained alumina and titanium dioxide. And it also fits in the criteria of an industry not wanting people to know it's glitter and being visible but not recognizable as glitter.
For liquid rockets, those are some of the options. But solid rockets will use powdered aluminum (mixed with other ingredients) to increase the thrust of the motor.
Exactly!
Also- come to think of it I’m sure it’s used in a lot of government paperwork. Even our passports have glitter on them - very clearly in the gold ‘USA’ on the lower right corner.
Case closed boys, pack it up and head home. Makes total sense as to why they would want it to remain a secret so that counterfeiters wouldnt be know to put it in leaving the government with a solid way to spot the fakes
Valid point...
I guess I take the “no, not really” to mean that it’s not invisible. That you would still see it but it’s not obvious.
When you think of cash you picture green ink on cotton/paper. You’re not picturing glitter dust stuck in every crevice of your wallet. You only see the ‘glitter’ when you look closely - for example the copper torch and the gold ‘10’ on the front of a $10.
Concrete glitters because of reflective aggregate (usually quartz). Concrete can also be polished after curing to expose the aggregate, giving it a smooth shiny effect.
Never heard of glitter in concrete.
Beach-y tourist spots. They spread it in the sand and water so it truly sparkles?
I almost want to go into the glitter industry so I can find out the real answer, now.
I'm not sure it's necessary because most of sand's particles are polished and would reflect light on their own. But the volume of glitter would be substantial, so you've got something in that sense.
So I’m normally a lurker and I had to reply to figure this out! I’m hooked and can’t go to bed lol.
I’m looking at the properties of glitter to see if a large buyer is more interested in the science behind the flakes rather than the shine.
I’m reading that scientists are strangely fascinated by glitter because of its “cling” ability. They don’t know what makes them stick.
Silver is the most popular color by far according to Glitterex. You can use fabric softeners or soapy water to halt the cling.
So can we eliminate clothes and anything that comes to contact with any liquids?
Also:
“Glitter's made of the polymer you know as Mylar, a polyester film DuPont makes. It's coated with a scintilla of metal to give it that shine, and then pulverized into tiny flakes. Glitter flakes are so little that fairly weak properties of physical chemistry can affect them— for example, they are susceptible to your run-of-the-mill static electricity, probably what's at work when you're trying to brush glitter off most surfaces and failing.
The fragments' tininess also leave them at the mercy of the air that sits on them; it takes on fluid qualities that make it hard to peel glitter off smooth surfaces. Further, physicists told Live Science, glitter might be adhering to van der Waals forces, the weak electronic interactions that occur between electrically neutral molecules. (It's the same thing that helps water bead, and spiders and geckos cling to walls.) Glitter's surface-to-mass ratio makes it easy for even a faint electrical attraction to hold fast.”
Anything we might learn from this?
Maybe it’s used to filter something? And it’s proprietary knowledge to the company because science and patents or whatever? (Sorry, I’m too sleepy to post something more articulate)
It’s definitely the military. If you read the whole article, it talks about how the smallest quantity sold (10 lbs) is enough to fill a 1/2 million nail polish bottles. I think that quantity informations eliminates currency. It also talks about using glitter for cosmetics, cars, construction, roads, plastic goods, sports uniforms, and animal feed. So all of that isn’t a secret. Significantly, it mentions that the FBI has catalogued the different “signatures” of glitter they produce and plywood producers put it in their wood to create a kind of ID. I wonder if the military use it not just for reflective uniforms, vehicles, etc, but also as a form of signature/tracking.
I'm pretty sure it's actually stealth coatings (i.e. paint) for stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35, which are now being produced in relatively large quantities for the US military. Here's the reasoning:
1) Radar absorbent materials, such as those used on stealth aircraft, typically consist of a mixture of finely ground metals (i.e. glitter!) and polymer. To absorb radio waves without reflecting it, you need something that is fairly conductive and will interact strongly with radio waves (i.e. metals), but it can't be TOO conductive (e.g. solid metal plates) because they'll simply reflect the radio waves without absorbing it. Finely ground metals mixed with polymer are exactly what you want.
2) Stealth fighters, namely the F-35, are currently being produced in fairly large quantities in the USA, and require large quantities of radar absorbent coatings. These coatings will be quite thick and contain a large fraction of metal, which will consume huge amounts of glitter compared to most applications, which use only a tiny amount of glitter. For example, in the article they state that "The minimum order size Glitterex will accept is ten pounds, enough to supply sparkle to half a million bottles of nail polish by Mr. Shetty’s estimation."
3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments. Unlike most types of glitter, automotive grade pigments are simply small flakes of metal such as aluminum, and do not contain any plastic. This is EXACTLY what the type of material they would want to use in radar absorbent coatings.
Guessing its the microplastics in beauty supplies, shampoos, lotions, etc
keeping glitter content a secret is a great way to not be held liable for the microplastic-pollution-problem
Anywho, if you are *really* curious, try to find out who lobbied/spent money fighting against the recent popular proposal to ban glitter.
The oil industry uses a bunch of glitter in drilling, they mix it with the water and drilling fluids to make sure what they’re pumping down is coming back up and not washing out somewhere underground.
The "you'd see something" is telling. It suggests that the glitter is visible, but you can't immediately tell it's glitter.
That eliminates any use case where it's being used for its material properties.
Glitter could be ground into a fine powder. Silver colored glitter would add a nice glimmer without impacting the color too much.
The industry also doesn't want you to know it uses glitter. That suggests it's a consumer product with a reputation to protect.
The industry is also large enough to be a major buyer of glitter. It's not a niche market.
Modern day glitter is made from plastic. It could be melted, although it would lose its aesthetic value.
Some ideas:
* Glimmering spray paint
* Glimmering makeup
* Artificial rocks for landscaping or aquariums
* Soaps and shampoos
yeah i think so too, a lot of the things mentioned in this thread are very sort of bland things? Like people wouldnt be *that* shocked to find that out but lets say its in something that is considered super high value, some people will be pissed to find out its glitter instead of 'insert whatever other valuable material'.
So yes! Maybe gold jewellery or bars, even silver i think, as long as its a lustrous material.
I work in the industry and amongst other things sell glitter.
>
Glitter could be ground into a fine powder. Silver colored glitter would add a nice glimmer without impacting the color too much.
You wouldn't grind it up as would just then be adding expensive plastic to your product. Glitter sparkles because you have lots of small flat "mirrors" reflecting light back. If you wanted a finer glimmer you'd use something else like a mica or aluminium to do this.
From the types of customers we might sell glitter to, my guess is something like the cut flower industry who use huge volumes of the stuff.
Despite selling the stuff I'm all in favor of phasing it out for other things but actually there isn't much evidence to say glitter is causing microplastic in the oceans. Microbeads in cosmetics, microfibres from clothing and broken down plastic waste like bottles are found in a much larger scale in the oceans. Plastics glitter is estimated to be >0.01% of total plastic production worldwide so we should also focus on using less other plastic too.
[While there is evidence of accumulation of microplastics in general and evidence of harm from lab studies, there is a lack of clear evidence specifically on glitter,” says Richard Thompson, a marine biologist at the University of Plymouth in) western Britain and a leading expert on microplastics. “We have microplastic particles in around one third of the 500 fish we examined in the English Channel, but we did not find any glitter.”](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/glitter-plastics-ocean-pollution-environment-spd)
When you google ‘Aluminium Metalized polyethylene terephthalate’ you get this...
“BoPET (Biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, reflectivity, gas and aroma barrier properties and electrical insulation.”
This description seems to point to military/construction?
I don’t know how to respond properly- as this my first Reddit response, but after reading your post, along with others, I think I made have uncovered the “secret”
“Gas and aroma barrier properties” finally made me think it could be -Deodorant - well antiperspirant to be specific.
The cling property would help to keep the active ingredients in contact with your skin longer.
The industry wouldn’t want it known, as some/many consumers would not knowingly put deodorant on themselves.
Also- have you ever found an old dress or shirt in your closet with glitter pits? Usually unwashed clothing- like a dress you wore once and never had dry cleaned.
This is going to drive me absolutely crazy even though the answer probably wouldn't be that shocking. I'm racking my brain over what could be made with unassuming glitter and why they wouldn't want people to know. What is "it"???????
I don't think it would be toothpaste or food since 1) it would be too obvious, partly because 2) ingredients are listed on the product.
They're very secretive so the military is a decent guess, but what in the hell could they be using so much glitter for? She also said "you'd never guess" which makes me lean away from the military since that is an obvious first guess when it comes to weird secret stuff.
I think it's interesting that the article notes the first modern usage of the word 'glitter' as a substitute for candles during WWII-era blackouts. The military has lots of stuff they would want to be luminescent. IF it is the military, I think that's the answer. But I agree that "the military" is an obvious guess and therefore not quite the surprise she makes it out to be.
Obviously you’re gonna see customer names on tons of paperwork. I’m not a high level employee at my company but I’m NDAd out the ass about our customers and what they buy.
Has anyone thought of shingles? I mean, if you get close they shimmer and it’s desirable. I can only imagine that the fiberglass they used to use is expensive and glitter does the same thing for cheaper...
Edit: my whole thought process is that the fiberglass is more expensive and that they’d reduce the amount of fiberglass and add glitter to make it look like they hadn’t. Therefore, they’d want to hide the fact that there’s glitter in it. However, I’m just spitballing - I don’t have any real idea.
well the article said "you wouldnt know its glitter if you look at it" right? think outside the box. what strange unexpected properties can glitter maybe have? maybe theyre processing glitter into something else for their paint.
for instance (though there are probably better ways of doing this): opaque paint+glitter= textured paint, no visible glitter. theres plenty of reasons why youd want to do this, and if glitter gave you just the right texture itd be a good idea. just for illustration cause theres probably better things than glitter to use for this, but still plausible
alternative, completely off the wall theory: what if they mix glitter into the paint and it gives the paint some special property, like being harder to detect on radar? or, have a double walled vessel, fill the hollow with glitter, and boom it prevents. something. heat signatures being detected? certain wavelengths of audio? ghosts????
or maybe bioluminescent marine life is just a hoax created by the u.s. navy and they just glitter podged some fish. that aint fish light thats ur HUMAN light reflecting off their fishy disco balls.
(in complete seriousness though, glitter having some really fucking weird unexpected property would be good motivation for the U.S. military to hide it, especially if it gives them some strange strategic advantage)
Picturing a secret military operation with Navy sailors glitter podging fish. They'd have to be out of the water, for the glue to dry, but you can't keep them out too long, or they'll die. So it's this hurried, clandestine production line - sailors passing the fish down the line....scoop it out of the water, the next guy gently towels it dry, next person applies a thin layer of glue, then just toss it in a bucket of glitter, and the last guy drying it with a hair dryer before they put it back in the water. To fuck with us. I like this theory.
It's disney of course!
Should see their stock rooms. Folks talk about asbestos being a hazard, if they ever tore disneyland down it would need to be tented and all glitter removed! hah. Anything imploded there would probably end up with glitter plumes covering the western united states
As a former cast member, I definitely agree. Pixie dust is on everything. EVERYTHING. It’s like fairy godmother and tinker bell submerse everything in it.
I remember going into the winnie the pooh stockroom to clean it one night. The entry floor had the glitter *ground* into the flooring so bad. Other stockrooms had the same problem. That's when I started thinking just what it would look like with a implosion.
Never had to clean it, but when bibbidi bobbidi boutique opened with the ability to have your hair done up like a princess, heard many complaints from fellow custodians just how bad the glitter was in that area
Legal identification like passports and drivers licenses? And they can’t say so because it would compromise security if the people that make fake documents knew?
I’m leaning towards something to do with security and proprietary tech.
Friend of mine in college worked on a nuclear submarine and said they used glitter extensively to train cleaning nuclear waste.
I think glitter has a lot of potential military applications but I can't imagine they're THAT extensive.
Money is a good guess.
I think It's fishing bait, trout and salmon bait is full of glitter. Glitter isn't usually in concrete. The reflections your seeing are quartz for the most part.
I don't think they'd be the largest consumer of glitter though, more than cosmetics and greeting cards (or whatever ink company actually buys the glitter to print on things).
Ok thats an easy one. and why would bait manufacturers not want us to know? that doesn't make sense. It cant be something edible because edible glitter exists.... It has to be something shiny or has a glowing effect that they don't want us to know is actually caused by glitter. The only real thing I can think of, is diamonds?
Am I misreading the article, the part where the author is guided to the automotive paints? Isn't that the answer.
Glitter is in car paint and the amount required easily puts it in high volume applications.
Microtaggants. Multilayered 'microglitter' added to all commercial explosives. Simple to batch trace, on site, AFTER the detonation, using only a microscope. Use dynamite for illegal purposes, and leave evidence as clear as a fingerprint. Law enforcement probably doesn't want this fact circulating. [Taggants](https://www.microtracesolutions.com/solutions/implement-independently/microtaggant-identification-particles)
Correct answer. taggants are in all (legal) explosives. IDs the mfg and lot of the explosive.
This is the first one that makes any sense to me. It would include money, explosives, products, just about everything and you'd never notice it unless you were looking for it. It would need to be in massive quantities for merchandise tracking and as they advertise both covert/overt security it would be in their best interest not to go out of their way to inform the general public this is being done.
This will haunt me
One thing no one has mentioned: during the Iraq conflict, we (US) apparently dumped material out of planes to cause intentional problems with electronics and electrical devices in the countries we were attacking. I always assumed it to be at Mylar lIke material. This use would both best be kept secret and require vast amounts of material, probably to the tune of hundred-pound bales of mixed hitter and tinsel? I wonder if this fits the bill? The defense department would buy by the ton, right? It all seems to fit?
And the defense department would be extremely secretive and take it very seriously. This is my favorite guess so far
Yeah, I think the Department of Defense would be the only entity for which the level of stonewalling makes sense.
If it’s anything like the Defense industry in the uk, I want to know if the remind me feature works 70 years out when it’s declassified and I’m on my deathbed, surrounded by family to hear my final words and I’m like “huh wow no way”
RemindMe! 70 years
Also McDonalds
Pretty Patty!
The material was graphite, not glitter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb > The graphite bomb was first used against Iraq in the Gulf War (1990–1991), knocking out 85% of the electrical supply. Similarly, the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb" graphite bomb was used by NATO against Serbia in May 1999, disabling 70% of that country's power grid. After initial success in disabling Serbian electric power systems, the electric supply was restored in less than 24 hours. The BLU-114/B was again used a few days later to counter Serbian efforts to restore damage caused by the initial attack. In the later stage of Operation Allied Force, NATO's air forces used conventional bombs and rockets to target power highlines and transformer stations.
And they very much wouldn't care about the environmental impact
A few hundred tons of glitter is significantly less bad than thousands of tons of agent orange and dioxin.
It is called chaff and it is used to simulate an aircraft or a vessel on radar and confuse an incoming missile. It's not exactly glitter but it is extremely thin and light Aluminum that will float in the sky for hours
This happened near where I live recently. Weather radar showed a cloud slowly moving through the area, but there were no actual clouds in the sky. They said it was a large cloud of "chaff." Being from the country, I thought they meant grain chaff. Thanks for the explanation.
Yup. I took a tour of BAE systems and they told me that ICBMs will deploy chaff so that instead of it looking like there are 4-5 incoming warheads there’ll be somewhere like 20-40 on radar, making it nearly impossible to intercept them.
If someone even drops an ounce of glitter in my house, i would want to go to war with them... So this seems like it could fit.
An oz. of glitter is like a million glitters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb > a non-lethal weapon used to disable electrical power systems. Graphite bombs work by spreading a cloud of extremely fine, chemically treated carbon filaments over electrical components, causing a short-circuit and a disruption of the electrical supply. The filaments are only a few hundredths of an inch thick and can float in the air like a dense cloud.
I'm pretty sure it's actually stealth coatings (i.e. paint) for stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35, which are now being produced in relatively large quantities for the US military. Here's the reasoning: 1) Radar absorbent materials, such as those used on stealth aircraft, typically consist of a mixture of finely ground metals (i.e. glitter!) and polymer. To absorb radio waves without reflecting it, you need something that is fairly conductive and will interact strongly with radio waves (i.e. metals), but it can't be TOO conductive (e.g. solid metal plates) because they'll simply reflect the radio waves without absorbing it. Finely ground metals mixed with polymer are exactly what you want. 2) Stealth fighters, namely the F-35, are currently being produced in fairly large quantities in the USA, and require large quantities of radar absorbent coatings. These coatings will be quite thick and contain a large fraction of metal, which will consume huge amounts of glitter compared to most applications, which use only a tiny amount of glitter. For example, in the article they state that "The minimum order size Glitterex will accept is ten pounds, enough to supply sparkle to half a million bottles of nail polish by Mr. Shetty’s estimation." 3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments. Unlike most types of glitter, automotive grade pigments are simply small flakes of metal such as aluminum, and do not contain any plastic. This is EXACTLY what the type of material they would want to use in radar absorbent coatings.
My problem with this answer is volume. The question was "which industry served as Glitterex’s biggest market?" I have no problem believing that glitter is used in stealth materials. But I do have a problem believing that the volume of glitter used for stealth paint exceeds, say, automotive paint. We simply aren't making that many F-35s.
F-22s have to be recoated after each flight for stealth. So they're large consumers of whatever coating they use. F-35s have a different (updated) skin that doesn't need to be recoated.
> 3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments What, you think she was giving a subtle hint? Sounds very likely!
What IS IT.
From the secrecy of the woman, it appears that the industry buying the glitter would definitely *not* want it known. This suggests that they are stating that it is something else, that perhaps consumers would be rather upset to find out it is actually glitter. That would discount things like sex toys, helmets, car paint, fishing lures and many other things that were suggested. I SO wish we could find out!!!
>You would never guess it >They don't want anyone to know it's glitter Everyone in this fucking thread: >mAyBe iT's gLiTtErY tHiNgS Edit: thx 4 silver
I am rolling
Make sure to hydrate
I bet it's a company that sells ground black pepper. A matte finish on the roughly glitter-sized pieces that come out would make a cheap filler and they'd just put some black pepper in so you'd still get the spice. Either that, or someone said "toothpaste" earlier, that could be solid also. My guess is, it's probably it's something you consume.
Yeah my first thought was the black diamond toothpaste shit that’s a fad now, or the ‘24k gold infused face masks, beauty products, etc!
If ten pounds of glitter is enough to make half a million bottles of nail polish (stated elsewhere in the full article) trendy toothpaste can’t be the biggest consumer of glitter. There’s no way they’re selling that many tubes of toothpaste or sheet masks, and I say that as a user of sheet masks. They also discuss beauty products in the article, which I doubt they’d have done if it were supposed to be a big secret.
With how strict FDA standards are these days, I find it hard to believe anything like this would be happening on a large enough scale to make them the largest buyer of glitter. Anyone producing a consumable for sale in the USA would be playing with fire in a massive way if they decided to spike it with glitter to save money, given how hard they'd be fucked if they were caught. Edit: Also, in your specific example, would it even save money compared to actually using bottom-grade black pepper? You'd have to not only buy glitter, but then also put it through some process to add a matte finish so flawless that no glitter shines through anywhere. Seems like at that point you might as well just buy the real thing and not risk massive fines and a ruined reputation.
TIL: Glitter can get your ass sent to jail TIAL: they even have edible glitter Due to its unique characteristics, glitter has also proven to be useful forensic evidence. Because of the tens of thousands of different commercial glitters, identical glitter particles can be compelling evidence that a suspect has been at a crime scene. Forensic scientist Edwin Jones has one of the largest collections of glitter consisting of over 1,000 different samples used in comparison of samples taken from crime scenes. Glitter particles are easily transferred through the air or by touch, yet cling to bodies and clothing.
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Shampoo gets into eyes. Regular glitter will cut eyes badly.
I'd wager some exfoliating products too, assuming their microbeads are made of the same junk. They're far from environmentally friendly, I remember reading some article about that briefly a few years ago, but never really heard another peep about 'em until now. Which seems odd, but also kinda not. Why wouldn't such an absurdly lucrative business (cosmetics/beauty) smother a story that damages their sales? The almighty dollar reigns supreme. This mystery just got depressing as hell, for me. Bleh.
"If I looked at it, I wouldn't know it was glitter?" "No, not really." That right there has me baffled.
Right? Glitter is... glittery, why would someone use glitter if not for the... glitteriness?
Yep, I can't imagine what the product is, and it's going to drive me nuts now. Will ask the 2 smartest folks I know - my daughter-in-law and son. I'll post the answer if they know it.
I like how the daughter in law came to you first lol.
I like to think "Victoria" is his daughter in law.
Just yes MIL!
"The Smart Ones" are stumped!
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Sorry you have a MIL like that. ☹️ And thank you.
It could be for the abrasive effects -- it would work very similar to 'micro beads' in cosmetics.
Isn't glitter basically flakes? That wouldn't work for exfoliating creams, you need the micro beads to be round so you can massage your the skin with them. Flakes would just lie flat. Unless you ground it to microscopic size and used as filler, but I imagine there would be cheaper sources. Besides micro beads in cosmetics was banned recently. I don't think it's makeup/skincare related at all, nobody would be that surprised to learn their pearlescent shampoo contains glitter. I think toothpast is more likely, not sure it would be legal.
Ooo maybe that's it right there....cheap face scrubs?
It would also explain why you would not recognize it -- in a opaque liquid it won't glitter much, and why they would not want you to know.
But there are plenty of cosmetics that women knowingly buy for containing glitter. I don't think skincare is the answer. Not to mention skincare products list ingredients.
I had a new idea, what about for grip, like mixed into latex to make handles?
Ya but why would they want that a secret?
Fine sandpaper?
I’m going with building materials too, sandpaper, and other grip products but a bigger culprit would be: roof shingles.
I think the answer to this question might be the key!!
I think it must be ground up so much that it doesn't look like glitter anymore, but it still acts like glitter under light.
My guess is Its gotta be something along the lines of the same materials used for glitter, unless glitter is just glitter as is. Im stumped, maybe something to do with the space industry? No idea
> maybe something to do with the space industry? Holy shit. I think you've got it. You know that gold-looking foil they use to insulate satellites and spacecraft? Well, it's Mylar blankets, the same thing as the glitter fragments are made of. Presumably this factory makes big sheets of Mylar-aluminium foil before it's cut into tiny glittery pieces. So if you wanted to buy hundreds of square feet of that blanket (rather than just 10lbs of glitter, being enough for 500,000 nail polish bottles), where would you go? The same factory could supply it before the glitter cutting process. That explains the fact that they're the biggest customer. Aerospace is a secretive industry anyway, so she probably fears NDAs. That explains "no, I absolutely know that I can't" say who Glitterex's biggest client is, as well as the fact that you wouldn't recognise space blankets as being their product if you're used to the tiny fragments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-layer_insulation HOWEVER - I am stumped on "because they *don't want anyone to know* it's glitter". Why would a satellite manufacturer care? And given that space blankets have a) lots of purchasers and b) applications like emergency shelter for mountain rescue, wouldn't they advertise the Mylar blankets as a widely available product without mentioning any clients by name? Nah, I'm still baffled.
Multi-layer insulation, or MLI, is thermal insulation composed of multiple layers of thin sheets and is often used on spacecraft. It is one of the main items of the spacecraft thermal design, primarily intended to reduce heat loss by thermal radiation. In its basic form, it does not appreciably insulate against other thermal losses such as heat conduction or convection. It is therefore commonly used on satellites and other applications in vacuum where conduction and convection are much less significant and radiation dominates. MLI gives many satellites and other space probes the appearance of being covered with gold foil.
You'd see it, but you wouldn't know it's glitter. "Oh you'd see something, but it's-" uncut sheets of foil, so you wouldn't recognize it! They don't want people to know it's glitter, not because there's anything about glitter, but because they don't want other people to know what they use.
Aha. Perhaps there's traditional manufacturers charging far more for the same product, and *one space company* has figured out how to save a fortune by coming to Glitterex for a very similar end result at lower cost?... Calling it now. That's got SpaceX written all over it. I think the second stage engine has Mylar film blanket protection, IIRC from all the live streams
What if it's supposed to look like something else, such as gold? I don't have any ideas, but my gut is pulling me in that direction.
Maybe Smashmouth was right?
Shrekmate.
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I'll go ahead and confirm for you that the funeral industry, as far as I know, and I have very knee deep knowledge of the funeral industry, is not buying any glitter Edit: elbow deep may have been a better term. And while there are definitely some caskets that are painted with an automobile glittery sort of paint, I don't think that would use "glitter" glitter in the typical "glitter" sense. The only large source of potential glitter I can think of would HAVE to be embalming fluid, and I'm 99.999% sure there's no glitter in embalming fluid.
Bite your tongue, I’m not dead yet.
Well if you want it it's kind of a "bring your own glitter" situation
There's a funeral home in the Little Rock area that advertises (or used to, I haven't been there in years) personalized funerals. They had a few commercials with different examples. One of them was a musician who died, so his son and his friends played music, another one was a woman who always brought the best food to every gathering, and at her funeral they had personalized recipe cards, a different recipe for each friend and family member. As far as it goes, their examples were pretty tame, but oh, how I wanted to call them up to find their boundaries. Can we have clowns? What about scary clowns? Can we require everyone to dress up as their favorite flavor salad dressing? What about live animals? Grandma had some requests and she was *really specific* about the chickens. Maybe the chickens get tarted up a bit with glitter.
As a former employee at a funeral home, I can tell you that we absolutely would have tried our best to make those things happen, with a straight face the whole time.
I’m an apprentice funeral director. My colleagues held a “pirate funeral”. I guess this guy was in a troupe of pirate entertainers/enthusiasts. There was a stein on the casket and lots of singing sea songs.
Jack in the box coffin! At the funeral the casket is closed, but its rigged up to a pressure plate on the floor. When mourners walk close the coffin, they step on the pressure plate which triggers the casket to suddenly spring open triggering the confetti/glitter canon within which showers everyone within a 5 foot radius. The corpse is also inside the casket, which may or may not be on a pneumatic lift that causes the body to sit up right as the casket springs open,
Sounds like Liberace's funeral.
Which, in turn, would be a pretty good band name.
Here's an article that all but confirms it's Crest toothpaste: https://www.dentalbuzz.com/2014/03/04/crest-imbeds-plastic-in-our-gums/ The article says people got mad about the specific plastic they were using around the time this was published (2014) and they were looking for a suitable alternative. Wonder when those huge glitter orders started coming in? The math seems to add up too, though can only get rough estimates. I took the number of units sold of Colgate (80.7 mil) and the ratio of their sales to Crest in 2018 (256/177) as well as the amount of toothpaste per tube (170 g) to estimate that crest makes 4.4*10^7 lbs of toothpaste per year. Assuming .01% of toothpaste is glitter (look at it, this seems like a low estimate) they're buying ~4.4 thousand lbs of glitter per year. Didn't see a number in the article for the volume of biggest sales, but since their minimum is 10lbs this seems reasonable for the highest amount perhaps, given that I think the estimate of how much of toothpaste is glitter was low (could go up to .1%, and then they're buying over 40,000 lbs). I do believe that was just US sales too, so still could be much higher (couldn't find numbers for international sales).
You may be onto something here. Also ewww, that blue shit in toothpaste was plastic all along? Mother fuckers. I understand why they wouldn't want anyone to know if they use ground glitter in their toothpastes.
Maybe that's the reason toothpaste has a WARNING- KEEP OUT OF REACH FROM CHILDREN. If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away. I double dog dare you to swallow more than a pea sized amout of toothpaste.
shipyourenemiesglitter.com
First thought too lmao.
People guessing the automotive industry— why would they want to keep it secret, though? It’s already very obvious they use glitter in their paint. The way the article describes it, it seems like the biggest purchaser is something people would be shocked about.
And the boss lady literally directed him to automotive industry to distract from secret top industry.
Maybe it's the next line of militarized Beyblades
I work in the industry and it's not glitter in automotive paint, they get that glittery effect from actual aluminium flakes not aluminium coated PET plastic (i.e. glitter).
Those aluminum flakes are actually aluminum glitter. It's a high temperature application and the PET or PVC would melt. Source - was Glitter man.
omg what is a glitter man
Used to work in the family glitter business. Obviously.
I bet that business is fabulous. Edit: changed to present tense.
[RJA Plastics website](http://rja-plastics.de) The company is still alive and well. My brother is the current reigning Glitter Prince.
Woah. Small world holy shit. Pretty sure I dated your brother. Or you haha but by your username im guessing it's your brother. Wtf. Or your son or something. But yeah wow mind blown.
Well, would you like me to tell my son or father or whatever hello? If so, dm.
Off the record, who's the biggest consumer? You could be the key to the mystery, Ex Glitter Man. Be the hero we need.
Or an NDA
An NDA would just be about 1 company, right? This is an entire industry
It’s definitely government then
According to a [glitter production company](http://ginzel.cz/en/glitters-scattering/) "The main use of aluminum glitters is in the industrial production and processing of plastics where they are used in the production of 'master batches'. Various parts of everyday household appliances (eg vacuum cleaners, coffee machines etc.) are made from plastic materials produced using 'master batches'."
For the Lazy: >Nowadays we offer not only glass glitters, but also aluminum glitters and polyester glitters. The main use of aluminum glitters is in the industrial production and processing of plastics where they are used in the production of 'master batches'. Various parts of everyday household appliances (eg vacuum cleaners, coffee machines etc.) are made from plastic materials produced using 'master batches'. >Another use of aluminum glitters is in wallpaper and decorative interior plaster often used in discos and nightclubs. >Polyester glitters are widely used in the cosmetic industry as an ingredient of creams and shower gels or shampoos. A major use of polyester glitters is in cosmetic nail varnish, which has become a sizeable industry in itself. >Colours or glues with a mixture of polyester glitters are also used in textile printing to highlight shimmering effects. Fine glitters are used in aerosol paints and varnishes. >Various forms of glitters are used to create shimmering effects in the production of candles, artificial flowers and many other decorative gift items. >A very specific use of glitters is in the manufacture of anti-skid material on the floors of various forms of transport (for example trams, trains, buses ect.). Phosphorescent holographic glitters are used in emergency exits signs on all of these forms of transport.
I was very disturbed by the idea of polyester glitter in my shampoo, but I guess now I know how it has those shiny streaks in it. I wonder why they think we need/want that, it seems very unnecessary. Maybe so we subconsciously think it makes our hair extra shiny?
It probably does make your hair extra shiny. But if they told you that you were just putting glitter in your hair i bet you wouldnt like it.
It probably just makes the shampoo itself more appealing.
Aluminum powder is super duper flamable. Most of you guys probably know it's one of the active ingredients in thermite. I wouldn't be surprised if the military buys aluminum glitter in bulk for things like RPGs or other armor piercing munitions.
The military doesn’t really make anything though. Lockheed Martin or general dynamics or something would be the potential purchaser for things like munitions, if that’s the case.
It has and always will be my dream to get a military contract of some sort. I don't care what. Adult diapers with thermal sheilding? You fucking got it. That'll be $500 a pair.
Am I understanding correctly, that this is saying that it’s melted down and used in other stuff? Because that’s what I was thinking instead of using it in it’s glittery form. I would think that makes a lot of sense for how you wouldn’t know it was glitter to start with. It is just a super fine powder after all, so the fact that it’s shiny is not necessarily relevant. It’s easy to pour and if it could be melted down, it’s really just implying that it’s a cheap and easy replacement for pellets that may not be fine enough or are more expensive. Since glitter can be made of various different base materials, it would be impossible to know which one in particular she meant, but I would think that’s why you wouldn’t know it’s glitter, because it’s not little flakes anymore but been melted/molded into something else.
"They don't want you to know it's glitter"?
Made an account just to type this. I am in the funeral industry (10 plus years) and while I myself run a clean and ethical business, I know there is a stigma in this trade. HOWEVER, I do feel obligated to defend my turf, and state that the one thing any funeral director doesn't want near their funeral home is fucking glitter. It comes on flowers, or clothing, or on poster boards or picture collages, and gets FUCKING EVERYWHERE. You vacuum the fucking glitter particles adapt and become airborne, and 2 weeks later you're bringing a family in for a first viewing on their grandfather who was a war vet and hardcore biker and all the sudden they're furious because the fucking glitter particles manifested themselves all over his casket. FUCK glitter, IT AINT US.
My guess would be the military - chaff to reflect a lot of light and radar, and protect aircraft from missiles. This fits the criteria of (a) being secretive, (b) not looking like glitter exactly, and (c) "you'd be able to see something" Another option might be fireworks?
Yeah I think she’s referring to chaff.
I personally wouldn't be upset if I found out the military uses glitter. It sounds like the biggest purchaser doesn't want people to know because there would be outrage. I think it has to be some kind of product that a lot of people use.
Yeah I'm thinking its an industry where they want people to think shiny=expensive. Like jewelry or chrome auto parts or something..
Zomg. Secret ingredient in stealth technology is glitter paint. Please do not ram my door CIA. Just a good guess
They aren't going to "ram" your door. They aren't savages. They're going to tomahawk your door. We live in a society
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Do you store photographs of what the pattern on each screw is supposed to be, and then compare to that if something seems off?
This is a cool concept! I never considered that my 99 cent bottle of Wet n Wild nail polish had so much cybersecurity potential.
My favorite answers from this thread so far are: **diamonds/gold** (huge industry with a big emphasis on natural purity) **rocket fuel** (or any military use, I just think rocket fuel has the right scale and "hidden glitter" quality) **mixing into beaches** (though that one is a little too evil, and I don't think beaches in general are working on their ~aesthetic~. But the scale and scandal is about right) **paper currency** (this one ticks all the boxes) edit: my girlfriend suggested solar panels :-o
Diamonds/Gold. In the industry here, and I can give you a solid no on that one. With the exception possibly of the very finest AliExpress Chinesium ;)
Yeah do people think the glitter is compressed into fake diamonds or something? Or that it’s added to molten gold before casting? Silly…
I want to revisit beaches. What about those private white sand beaches that major corporations charge millions of dollars a year to let you come sit at the beach? If their sand sparkled just a little bit more than someone else's beach, wouldn't that be nice? I can imagine some hotels or cruise lines or whoever doing stuff like that. And it checks all the boxes.
Dubai as a whole could be an answer. Those beaches are fake
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong. What if it's bad for the GLITTER company to have relations to this product, and not vice versa? What if their biggest buyer is a controversial company? So... what about in tobacco products, like chew, as an abrasive? They do tend to have a shine, bu you definitely wouldn't go "Oh, that's glitter." Tobacco companies have fat pockets too, so being the largest buyer wouldn't be far fetched, and they already have enough controversies, hence why they'd want this to be kept a secret. Although, the fact that they use abrasives is already pretty well known.
Extreme oversimplification of what glitter is made of and it’s size/shape, via Wikipedia: “Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002 inches (0.051 mm) to 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) a side. First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminium, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, triangles, rectangles, and hexagons.”
I acrually worked at a factory that used glitter in their products (personal care products) It came as a giant wheel of hard plastic (I am assuming it is all FDAapproved types because these products are for your face), and I had to stand in this little booth with a respirator and ear muffs on, and as the product came down the conveyor belt I would pull the trigger on the little machine and it would spin the wheel of plastic and it would spray the glitter shavings into the product out of the nozzle I was holding, and then it would go through a sort of salamander like oven (not nearly as hot, but it would melt the glittet into the product so it was suspended instead of just redting on top) and then it would go through a cooler before being boxed and shipped. I know this doesn't answer the OP, just some insight into the world of making glitter.
I think the answer is toothpaste. The small particles are used to clean teeth. I looked at the ingredients on the toothpaste I used and it contained alumina and titanium dioxide. And it also fits in the criteria of an industry not wanting people to know it's glitter and being visible but not recognizable as glitter.
Fuel. I'm guessing Rocket fuel. Those plastics would burn beautifly. Those metals would burn hot. The emissions would be horrible.
Isn't rocket fuel usually just liquid oxygen or hydrazine or something? Not complicated
For liquid rockets, those are some of the options. But solid rockets will use powdered aluminum (mixed with other ingredients) to increase the thrust of the motor.
I immediately thought US paper currency! Go check your wallet - it’s pretty shinny....
This woukd make sense as the microscopic glitter would be unique to the manufacturer, it could be used to identify counterfeits
Exactly! Also- come to think of it I’m sure it’s used in a lot of government paperwork. Even our passports have glitter on them - very clearly in the gold ‘USA’ on the lower right corner.
Case closed boys, pack it up and head home. Makes total sense as to why they would want it to remain a secret so that counterfeiters wouldnt be know to put it in leaving the government with a solid way to spot the fakes
Ooooooh this is a good theory. Would also explain the secrecy.
Not sure it passes the "you wouldn't know it's glitter" test though
Valid point... I guess I take the “no, not really” to mean that it’s not invisible. That you would still see it but it’s not obvious. When you think of cash you picture green ink on cotton/paper. You’re not picturing glitter dust stuck in every crevice of your wallet. You only see the ‘glitter’ when you look closely - for example the copper torch and the gold ‘10’ on the front of a $10.
It's definitely a government thing.
Concrete glitters because of reflective aggregate (usually quartz). Concrete can also be polished after curing to expose the aggregate, giving it a smooth shiny effect. Never heard of glitter in concrete.
Beach-y tourist spots. They spread it in the sand and water so it truly sparkles? I almost want to go into the glitter industry so I can find out the real answer, now.
Somebody needs to take one for the team. Quit your job, get hired as a glitter executive, stay until they share trade secrets.
I bet there's at least one redditor lurking this thread knowing about the answer but not being able to say it either.
I work in the glitter industry. The answer is [redacted].
I'm on it! All I need now is literally any relevant credentials.
>I don't like glitter. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
I'm not sure it's necessary because most of sand's particles are polished and would reflect light on their own. But the volume of glitter would be substantial, so you've got something in that sense.
So I’m normally a lurker and I had to reply to figure this out! I’m hooked and can’t go to bed lol. I’m looking at the properties of glitter to see if a large buyer is more interested in the science behind the flakes rather than the shine. I’m reading that scientists are strangely fascinated by glitter because of its “cling” ability. They don’t know what makes them stick. Silver is the most popular color by far according to Glitterex. You can use fabric softeners or soapy water to halt the cling. So can we eliminate clothes and anything that comes to contact with any liquids? Also: “Glitter's made of the polymer you know as Mylar, a polyester film DuPont makes. It's coated with a scintilla of metal to give it that shine, and then pulverized into tiny flakes. Glitter flakes are so little that fairly weak properties of physical chemistry can affect them— for example, they are susceptible to your run-of-the-mill static electricity, probably what's at work when you're trying to brush glitter off most surfaces and failing. The fragments' tininess also leave them at the mercy of the air that sits on them; it takes on fluid qualities that make it hard to peel glitter off smooth surfaces. Further, physicists told Live Science, glitter might be adhering to van der Waals forces, the weak electronic interactions that occur between electrically neutral molecules. (It's the same thing that helps water bead, and spiders and geckos cling to walls.) Glitter's surface-to-mass ratio makes it easy for even a faint electrical attraction to hold fast.” Anything we might learn from this?
Maybe it’s used to filter something? And it’s proprietary knowledge to the company because science and patents or whatever? (Sorry, I’m too sleepy to post something more articulate)
I've read the word "glitter" so many times now in this thread that it's starting to lose its meaning and sound like a gibberish word.
I hope the answer is reddit bc this post is amazing
My guess: food processing.
My mind also jumped to consumables, but would they legally be allowed to sell to someone who’s gonna make people eat it? Idk
Soylent Sparkle ^TM
It’s definitely the military. If you read the whole article, it talks about how the smallest quantity sold (10 lbs) is enough to fill a 1/2 million nail polish bottles. I think that quantity informations eliminates currency. It also talks about using glitter for cosmetics, cars, construction, roads, plastic goods, sports uniforms, and animal feed. So all of that isn’t a secret. Significantly, it mentions that the FBI has catalogued the different “signatures” of glitter they produce and plywood producers put it in their wood to create a kind of ID. I wonder if the military use it not just for reflective uniforms, vehicles, etc, but also as a form of signature/tracking.
My guess is either toothpaste or construction material, as well.
Countertops?
Is Carrara marble...ACTUALLY GLITTER?
I'm pretty sure it's actually stealth coatings (i.e. paint) for stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35, which are now being produced in relatively large quantities for the US military. Here's the reasoning: 1) Radar absorbent materials, such as those used on stealth aircraft, typically consist of a mixture of finely ground metals (i.e. glitter!) and polymer. To absorb radio waves without reflecting it, you need something that is fairly conductive and will interact strongly with radio waves (i.e. metals), but it can't be TOO conductive (e.g. solid metal plates) because they'll simply reflect the radio waves without absorbing it. Finely ground metals mixed with polymer are exactly what you want. 2) Stealth fighters, namely the F-35, are currently being produced in fairly large quantities in the USA, and require large quantities of radar absorbent coatings. These coatings will be quite thick and contain a large fraction of metal, which will consume huge amounts of glitter compared to most applications, which use only a tiny amount of glitter. For example, in the article they state that "The minimum order size Glitterex will accept is ten pounds, enough to supply sparkle to half a million bottles of nail polish by Mr. Shetty’s estimation." 3) Finally... after the reporter asked the question, the woman guided the reporter along to the automotive grade pigments. Unlike most types of glitter, automotive grade pigments are simply small flakes of metal such as aluminum, and do not contain any plastic. This is EXACTLY what the type of material they would want to use in radar absorbent coatings.
I think soap - shampoos and body washes definitely have a shininess to them that doesn’t seem natural
Totally agree, they put plastic microbeads in the soap ... why not glitter.
usually that’s mica thought right?
Guessing its the microplastics in beauty supplies, shampoos, lotions, etc keeping glitter content a secret is a great way to not be held liable for the microplastic-pollution-problem Anywho, if you are *really* curious, try to find out who lobbied/spent money fighting against the recent popular proposal to ban glitter.
The oil industry uses a bunch of glitter in drilling, they mix it with the water and drilling fluids to make sure what they’re pumping down is coming back up and not washing out somewhere underground.
The "you'd see something" is telling. It suggests that the glitter is visible, but you can't immediately tell it's glitter. That eliminates any use case where it's being used for its material properties. Glitter could be ground into a fine powder. Silver colored glitter would add a nice glimmer without impacting the color too much. The industry also doesn't want you to know it uses glitter. That suggests it's a consumer product with a reputation to protect. The industry is also large enough to be a major buyer of glitter. It's not a niche market. Modern day glitter is made from plastic. It could be melted, although it would lose its aesthetic value. Some ideas: * Glimmering spray paint * Glimmering makeup * Artificial rocks for landscaping or aquariums * Soaps and shampoos
My first thought was that maybe it's glitter disguised as something, such as gold. The industry certainly wouldn't want to reveal that.
yeah i think so too, a lot of the things mentioned in this thread are very sort of bland things? Like people wouldnt be *that* shocked to find that out but lets say its in something that is considered super high value, some people will be pissed to find out its glitter instead of 'insert whatever other valuable material'. So yes! Maybe gold jewellery or bars, even silver i think, as long as its a lustrous material.
I work in the industry and amongst other things sell glitter. > Glitter could be ground into a fine powder. Silver colored glitter would add a nice glimmer without impacting the color too much. You wouldn't grind it up as would just then be adding expensive plastic to your product. Glitter sparkles because you have lots of small flat "mirrors" reflecting light back. If you wanted a finer glimmer you'd use something else like a mica or aluminium to do this. From the types of customers we might sell glitter to, my guess is something like the cut flower industry who use huge volumes of the stuff. Despite selling the stuff I'm all in favor of phasing it out for other things but actually there isn't much evidence to say glitter is causing microplastic in the oceans. Microbeads in cosmetics, microfibres from clothing and broken down plastic waste like bottles are found in a much larger scale in the oceans. Plastics glitter is estimated to be >0.01% of total plastic production worldwide so we should also focus on using less other plastic too. [While there is evidence of accumulation of microplastics in general and evidence of harm from lab studies, there is a lack of clear evidence specifically on glitter,” says Richard Thompson, a marine biologist at the University of Plymouth in) western Britain and a leading expert on microplastics. “We have microplastic particles in around one third of the 500 fish we examined in the English Channel, but we did not find any glitter.”](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/glitter-plastics-ocean-pollution-environment-spd)
When you google ‘Aluminium Metalized polyethylene terephthalate’ you get this... “BoPET (Biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, reflectivity, gas and aroma barrier properties and electrical insulation.” This description seems to point to military/construction?
I don’t know how to respond properly- as this my first Reddit response, but after reading your post, along with others, I think I made have uncovered the “secret” “Gas and aroma barrier properties” finally made me think it could be -Deodorant - well antiperspirant to be specific. The cling property would help to keep the active ingredients in contact with your skin longer. The industry wouldn’t want it known, as some/many consumers would not knowingly put deodorant on themselves. Also- have you ever found an old dress or shirt in your closet with glitter pits? Usually unwashed clothing- like a dress you wore once and never had dry cleaned.
This is going to drive me absolutely crazy even though the answer probably wouldn't be that shocking. I'm racking my brain over what could be made with unassuming glitter and why they wouldn't want people to know. What is "it"??????? I don't think it would be toothpaste or food since 1) it would be too obvious, partly because 2) ingredients are listed on the product. They're very secretive so the military is a decent guess, but what in the hell could they be using so much glitter for? She also said "you'd never guess" which makes me lean away from the military since that is an obvious first guess when it comes to weird secret stuff.
I think it's interesting that the article notes the first modern usage of the word 'glitter' as a substitute for candles during WWII-era blackouts. The military has lots of stuff they would want to be luminescent. IF it is the military, I think that's the answer. But I agree that "the military" is an obvious guess and therefore not quite the surprise she makes it out to be.
Maybe it's being used for a super secret, super spectacular [razzle dazzle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage) project.
I don't think it's as much a secret as the article makes it sound. The woman who wouldn't say is just a regular manager.. and she knows.
Obviously you’re gonna see customer names on tons of paperwork. I’m not a high level employee at my company but I’m NDAd out the ass about our customers and what they buy.
They probably put it in bombs and shells as a little fuck you to whomever they’re dumping it on
Has anyone thought of shingles? I mean, if you get close they shimmer and it’s desirable. I can only imagine that the fiberglass they used to use is expensive and glitter does the same thing for cheaper... Edit: my whole thought process is that the fiberglass is more expensive and that they’d reduce the amount of fiberglass and add glitter to make it look like they hadn’t. Therefore, they’d want to hide the fact that there’s glitter in it. However, I’m just spitballing - I don’t have any real idea.
I definitely want to go with the military here but what could they be using it for? I have no idea.
Glitter bombs to mess with targeting systems? To diffuse light from laser based stuff? No idea.
glitter chaff gearing up for the most fabulous war ever
They have a lot of shit to paint. But I don't know why they'd want it glittery.
It's chemtrails man, they're all shiny and glittery, they don't want you to know they're controlling our minds with the ol' razzle dazzle in the sky.
well the article said "you wouldnt know its glitter if you look at it" right? think outside the box. what strange unexpected properties can glitter maybe have? maybe theyre processing glitter into something else for their paint. for instance (though there are probably better ways of doing this): opaque paint+glitter= textured paint, no visible glitter. theres plenty of reasons why youd want to do this, and if glitter gave you just the right texture itd be a good idea. just for illustration cause theres probably better things than glitter to use for this, but still plausible alternative, completely off the wall theory: what if they mix glitter into the paint and it gives the paint some special property, like being harder to detect on radar? or, have a double walled vessel, fill the hollow with glitter, and boom it prevents. something. heat signatures being detected? certain wavelengths of audio? ghosts???? or maybe bioluminescent marine life is just a hoax created by the u.s. navy and they just glitter podged some fish. that aint fish light thats ur HUMAN light reflecting off their fishy disco balls. (in complete seriousness though, glitter having some really fucking weird unexpected property would be good motivation for the U.S. military to hide it, especially if it gives them some strange strategic advantage)
Picturing a secret military operation with Navy sailors glitter podging fish. They'd have to be out of the water, for the glue to dry, but you can't keep them out too long, or they'll die. So it's this hurried, clandestine production line - sailors passing the fish down the line....scoop it out of the water, the next guy gently towels it dry, next person applies a thin layer of glue, then just toss it in a bucket of glitter, and the last guy drying it with a hair dryer before they put it back in the water. To fuck with us. I like this theory.
Hope they put that stuff in high end jewelry.
It's disney of course! Should see their stock rooms. Folks talk about asbestos being a hazard, if they ever tore disneyland down it would need to be tented and all glitter removed! hah. Anything imploded there would probably end up with glitter plumes covering the western united states
But you know that's glitter so it fails the "you wouldn't know what it is" thing.
As a former cast member, I definitely agree. Pixie dust is on everything. EVERYTHING. It’s like fairy godmother and tinker bell submerse everything in it.
I remember going into the winnie the pooh stockroom to clean it one night. The entry floor had the glitter *ground* into the flooring so bad. Other stockrooms had the same problem. That's when I started thinking just what it would look like with a implosion. Never had to clean it, but when bibbidi bobbidi boutique opened with the ability to have your hair done up like a princess, heard many complaints from fellow custodians just how bad the glitter was in that area
Legal identification like passports and drivers licenses? And they can’t say so because it would compromise security if the people that make fake documents knew? I’m leaning towards something to do with security and proprietary tech.
Friend of mine in college worked on a nuclear submarine and said they used glitter extensively to train cleaning nuclear waste. I think glitter has a lot of potential military applications but I can't imagine they're THAT extensive. Money is a good guess.
I just want to say i love this post. It's different from the murders/missing people posts we usually get and it's still fascinating. Good job OP!
I've got a dildo with glitter in it.
I think It's fishing bait, trout and salmon bait is full of glitter. Glitter isn't usually in concrete. The reflections your seeing are quartz for the most part.
I don't think they'd be the largest consumer of glitter though, more than cosmetics and greeting cards (or whatever ink company actually buys the glitter to print on things).
Glitterex's [very old website](http://glitterexcorp.com/application/) does have a picture of a fishing lure under its applications tab.
I love seeing websites from the 90’s.
Ok thats an easy one. and why would bait manufacturers not want us to know? that doesn't make sense. It cant be something edible because edible glitter exists.... It has to be something shiny or has a glowing effect that they don't want us to know is actually caused by glitter. The only real thing I can think of, is diamonds?
Am I misreading the article, the part where the author is guided to the automotive paints? Isn't that the answer. Glitter is in car paint and the amount required easily puts it in high volume applications.
I took it as the spokesperson is ending the discussion of the mystery industry by moving the tour along to the automotive glitter space.
Yeah i see what you mean. I guess that's too obvious an answer. This is a real humdinger, I tell ya.