All that glitter's not gold
So I hear there's a push on to ban glitter because it's basically micro-plastic and therefore evil. About time too. Call me a killjoy, but I was on the glitter banned wagon years ago. Another from The Sunday Age.
Out strolling with my two small kids recently, minding my own business, I was accosted by a strange woman. She thrust her open palm at us, revealing a handful of evil looking powder.
“Hello kiddies,” she said. “Would you like some fairy dust?”
Next thing I knew we were trapped inside this woman’s so-called Fairie Shoppe. My wallet was being wrenched from my pocket by my own children. They were wild-eyed, gibbering, barely recognisable under layers of sparkle-encrusted merchandise. They were completely off their faces on fairy dust.
Now I’m no wowser. I think there’s a time and a place for glitter. I have vague but not unpleasant memories of a glitter-induced rave party at the Royal Showgrounds back in 1997, for example.
But as a parent of small children, I think it’s wrong that this stuff has become so freely available. Especially now that I know just how addictive it can be. I think we need to ask ourselves what sort of society allows people to push glitter (or fairy dust, or whatever it is they call it these days) on children. In the street!
Is it not enough that every item of girly clothing from toddler to tween and beyond is already caked in this sparkly powdery potion? Do we really need it shoved under our noses as well?
I’m sure China’s vast glitter mines have stepped up production in recent years. The stuff is in everything. Kids hoard it in their bedrooms by the jarful. They swoon over its sparkly beauty in everything from mugs to sneakers to nail polish to glue to unicorns.
Oh sure, it’s just a bit of fun in granulated form. A few little magic sprinkles, where’s the harm in that? I’ll tell you where the harm is – it’s all over our house. Glitter, for those who don’t know, gets into every nook and cranny. And it stays there.
And those who deal in glitter know exactly what they’re doing. They hand the kids a free sample and the kids keep coming back for me. Pretty soon they’re completely hooked and your whole world is flecked with tiny particles that stick to every available surface and are pretty much impossible to remove even with repeated vacuuming.
It’s got so bad round our place that I actually look forward to those swelteringly hot days in summer when I can roll the kids on our sparkle-strewn floorboards and hose them off outside. For a few days at least, assuming I can confiscate all the half-open jars of glitter secreted around the house, there will be more glitter outside than in.
But it's a losing battle. Particularly on the domestic front. One sprinkling in your little pixies’ hair will still be there months later. You can try to wash it out but those shimmering shards will only spread. They’ll turn up in the middle of serious, adult conversations. You’ll be stopped mid-sentence to be told that nobody’s been listening to a word you’ve said. They’ve been too busy staring at the tiny magenta sparkle glinting on your cheek.
Where will it all end? I shudder to think. We can’t go on like this forever. There must be consequences for overdosing on glitter.
This stuff sticks around. It could be the coal dust of the late 21st century. Decades of inhaling and ingesting fairy dust has to have an effect. It might not be soon, but in years to come, we’re sure to start sprouting pixie wings. We’re going to wake up with unicorn horns and magic wands where our fingers used to be.
Consider this a warning, fairies – get a good lawyer before the dust settles.