October 7, 2022 • 56 mins
When most of us think of glitter, we think of arts and crafts -- not a conspiracy. But, as it turns out, the glitter industry has a strange, enduring secret. One group is buying the majority of the glitter in the United States... and the glitter companies have vowed never to make this information public. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they dive into the strange secrets of the Glitter Conspiracy. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Uh, shine bright like a diamond.
As I believe Rihanna said, we wanted to do a
(00:46):
fun one today, or at least I really did, especially
because we have some dark water ahead. So here we go,
no fooling. If you read the title, today's episode is
about glitter. Seriously, glittery water perhaps ahead as well. Oh yes,
glittery water before we get to the dark stuff, uh
towards the end of the year. Look, you know, some
(01:08):
people love glitter, some people hate it. But every single
person listening now we all know what we're talking about
when we say glitter. This shiny stuff has also been
called the herpies of the arts and crafts world, a
joke I appreciated because it does seem nolaf air use
the word insidious, with which I agree. It seems to
(01:30):
get everywhere, even when you don't want it to. Glitter
does not care about your consent. It doesn't care what
you're doing later that day, that week, or you know,
even months after that when you pick up that coat
because the weather has changed. Uh. You know the full disclosure,
fellow conspiracy realist. The three of us, well, the four
(01:52):
of us counting Paul, aren't especially glitter people. We don't
wake up and go to sleep dreaming of glitter. But
we uh, we learned fairly recently that glitter maybe much
more than a scintillating cousin of confetti. In fact, it
is associated with a surprising amount of mystery and conspiracy.
(02:15):
So first things first, here the facts. Riddle me this.
What what is glitter? What? What is it? Star dust?
Start pixieotogical star dust? It's created by the Faye people,
uh in trees presumably. Um, No, it's not that at all.
It's an industrial grade material basically that's uh cut into
(02:40):
tiny pieces that are impossible to recover or to remove
from wherever they find their way. Yes, and it's kind
of fun. Real name I guess it was fun trying
to put pH and th h together. That's that's not
a fun thing to do. Oh, I guess it is
an exciting thing to do for your mouth, but in
(03:02):
the end it's not fun for anybody who's listening. But
polyethylene tariff tholate, Yes, nailed it. Now, Aluminum metalized polyethylene
tariff tariff thalit. Yeah, metalized? What does that even mean?
Is it something either metal or it's not. How does
something become metalized? Like so potato chip bags or crisp
(03:25):
for our friends across the pond, Uh, they are metalized. Essentially.
What you do is you take aluminum and you evaporate
it in a very very thin layer across a substance, right,
a substrate. Uh. It's it's weird. It sounds like we're
just throwing a bunch of words at you without really
answering the question what is glitter? But okay, let's let's
(03:49):
get even Uh, let's be even less helpful. Uh. There's
a fantastic New York Times article several that informed our
research here, and one put it this way. As weird
as it sounds, reading this, you'll walk away with the
idea that glitter is made from well glitter. You start
(04:10):
with a big old sheet of this stuff, right like
a like a plastic or cellulo spasin, and then it's
been metallicized, often with aluminum, and then you just keep
cutting it, and you cut it smaller and smaller. The
New York Times article in specific said quote, big glitter
(04:31):
begets smaller glitter smaller, glitter gets everywhere. All glitter is
impossible to remove. Surreal. Remember that really embarrassing scene from
I think it's Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace
where Anakin is bemoaning sand, the idea of sand. You
can just replace the word sand in his little speech
with glitter, which I'm going to do. I don't like glitter.
(04:53):
I don't like glitter at all. It's coarse and rough
and irritating and it gets everywhere. Yes, well done. And look,
we we can give you a little bit of the
history of what we could call modern glitter. Uh. Most
folks agree the modern version of plastic glitter dates back
to the nineteen thirties. Uh. And and a big part
(05:15):
of that is due too, Like when you say modern glitter,
we're talking about kind of a plastic base. Um, a
lot of modern glitter really comes from shortages during during
global wars because people used to make glass glitter, little
shards of glass. They read they couldn't maintain trade supply
(05:36):
with Germany that was making a lot of glass shards.
So this guy we'll talk about in a second, he uh,
this guy named Henry, he starts making uh, plastic based glitter.
But if you look back through the crazy game that
we call humanity, this nuts so fat, then you will
see that people have been into shiny stuff. Uh most people,
(06:02):
I am not, but most people have been into really shiny,
gleaming stuff since before people wrote things down, before language
was invented, people were all about. People were part macked by.
I was about to say, your your, your pals, the
the what do you call them? There? What's going on?
Just just a guy who does a show with you.
(06:25):
We don't we don't need to you know what when
it comes to my past and be very glitter x
very meadow brook though we don't need to know. Isn't
that funny though, that there's this like little thing and
are deep in our reptile brains that just seeks the
shine man like gold rush is all based on the glimmer.
It's all based on that shiny stuff, and that's how
(06:45):
you know it's special. And glitter is essentially sort of
like gaming that part of our brains with something essentially worthless.
But that's sort of like gives us a similar dopamine
hit to the stuff that's actually quote unquote valuable. That's
why I end ancient times that you're talking about. They're
been like prehistoric times. That's why people decided to put
shiny on their face and on their arms and in
(07:07):
places they would make them shine to others. It's all
about being shiny for you. There. Weness is witness me,
witnessed me. I don't know. I didn't agree with his
religion until I saw his shiny wekness is that man's
onto something. Can we just put this to bed real quick?
It's Weenness is not a scientific term. I think we've
(07:29):
we surely have discussed this before, but I don't know
where that came about. But weenness is not actually an
official name for the part of your elbow. That's like
it feels no, that's true, that's true, and that's an
important fact to establish. This is the quality of discourse
you could expect from our show witness not a scientific
term so far as we know. Somebody fact check us there,
(07:51):
just in case I don't want to weanness doctor writing
to us and say, you know, actually I'm the leading
awaeness oologist of the southern New Jersey and you guys
are being quite offensive. Uh. There was one interesting thing
that I didn't I don't think we talked about in
the notes, but the there there's a fascinating theory that
(08:15):
the attraction to things that shine and reflect light in
that specific way comes from the need to find potable water,
like you could see water reflecting, and that might be partial.
I don't think it's a d percent explanation, but it
is really fascinating, you know. Um. But also to your
(08:37):
earlier point, Matt, ancient people have cosmetics. You know. They
wanted to pop, just the same way that you know
your friends, your loved ones. Maybe you like to pop
or make a statement when you enter a room. Uh.
All sorts of stuff was used. Malachite, hammatite, crushed beetles,
(08:58):
mica dust was very peeler for a time. The list
goes on. You know, we're at amology nerds here, folks
in the word in the English language glitter comes from
glitter in, which probably comes from an old Norse phrase glitra.
So we're talking always about a new iteration of an
ancient concept. Let's get back to our Let's get back
(09:21):
to our machine guy, though, can we introduce the guy
who in uh, can we introduce the guy who introduced
the modern world to modern glitter? Gonna just say first,
modern glitter, great name for like a new wave of
kind of synth band, modern glitter that if that doesn't
already existed, ship. Yeah, the guy in question, Henry F. Rushman, Oh,
(09:41):
Henry F. Henry invented a is New Jersey based He
invented a mechanical uh, cutting machine, essentially for paper and
for a photo film. Like if you ever, if you
remember your grade school days, Matt, you're doing the correct gesture,
(10:01):
right that that weird elbow arm thing that only existed
the slice stuff. It was not multifunctional, yeah, and only
existed behind the desk in like the office, the main
you know, and it was always like, you know, this
like sacred thing that looked so scary and dangerous and
lock and key. Oh god, yeah, it's like a little
(10:22):
mini guillotine, little kid fingers against that, I say, but
but there's also you know, this reminds me there's this
whole panopoly of these specific single use tools that teachers possessed.
They were there were vestments of power. Yeah, the whole punch. Uh.
(10:43):
The lamination machine is another one. That one was super
off the books for the civilian population. And overhead projectors.
I was just talking about that off air, hanging out
with some folks. Overhead projectors. You remember those. Yeah, they
always came on a cart kind of strapped down, so
you wouldn't like make off. So, uh, we're probably we're
(11:05):
probably giving some people some nostalgia here, and let's go
ahead and mind that vein. So this guy's machine, Henry's machine,
is pretty good, you know, Uh, but it does something
that he and his employees start to think of as stuttering.
So every so often, while this thing is cutting up
(11:25):
film and it's cutting up paper, it has a little
like shiver shiver fart, and it farts out these tiny
pieces of cellulose used in film. And so employees started
saving this stuff and they would use it on their
Christmas trees as artificial snow. That's pretty wholesome, especially for
(11:46):
our show, and we imagine we may get to this,
but like tinsel seems like the more elongated cousin to glitter.
Tinsel is like a similar kind of you know, metalized
kind of material that comes in these strands um that
you would all so of course used to decorate your
Christmas tree, but probably similarly chemically and weird. It's like,
(12:07):
finally the answer to the question no Italian asked, why
can't glitter be like more like spaghetti? Uh So the
look what this is? This is true. That's a really
good observation. We're already starting to see how this happy
accident acquires a number of applications. If you fast forward
(12:28):
to the modern day, there's not just one glitter. There
over twenty thousand different varieties of glitter that we know of,
and I feel comfortable saying that in the context of
this episode, some of yet to be discovered. There's a
whole periodic periodic table of elements of glitter, and all
the glitterati, all the all those in the know, the
(12:50):
glitter ologists and the wenlogists and so on, they they
know that there are other types of glitter that may
theoretically exist in this universe. And so we want to
thank them for their service and their hard work. Uh
finding the next Okay, this analogy is breaking down. Moving on, Well,
(13:11):
speaking of breaking down, I mean they're like you said,
then there's aluminum is probably the most obvious go to.
That like is easier to kind of like, you know,
wrap your head around. It looks like that. It makes
sense that you have stuff like titanium dioxide, iron oxide,
and bismuth oxy chloride. Oh finally good, Yeah, bismuth oxy chloride.
(13:32):
Our sponsor, Illumination Global Unlimited, wants you to know that
you can write to Illumination Global Unlimited dot com, slash
conspiracy and get fifteen percent off your bismuth oxy chloride needs.
That is not true, No one check it. Make sure
you have to make sure to read the disclaimer at
the end. It's a little long, but worth your time.
(13:54):
And it's worth your time your so the there there
are also a lot of shape right, just like you
know this, here's a good comparison, Campbell's soup. Right, Campbell's
soup has ends. Yeah, you got chicken and rice, You
got chicken and stars, You got chicken and noodles. You
can take these things just like noodles or just like
(14:18):
you know, the basic carbohydrate making up these things. You
can make g litter in any number of shapes. You want,
little stars, we got you. You want a little like
you want little bells, you got. You need some sparkly
tiny bells for the holidays or whatever, be any bell
you know, oriented occasion. Yeah, and so this is. And
(14:39):
of course again these all come with tons of different
color possibilities, tons of different elements with which these are manufactured.
But one thing that we ran into that really set
the tone or foreshadowed or mystery today is I don't
know about you, guys. I think we all wear I
(15:00):
was looking for some very basic statistics, typically not always,
but typically in any kind of consumer industry, it's pretty
easy to find usage statistics of some sort. For a thing,
the dairy Association really wants you to know how much
cheese milk. You know, how many eggs people are eating
(15:23):
this year versus last year. Not so with glitter that
they're incredibly hesitant. The glitter manufacturers are incredibly hesitant to
share even basic stuff like the exact sales numbers, um,
the exact amount of glitter made per year in general, um.
(15:43):
Even even the statistics that I was able to pull
didn't quite get us there, and there's not a lot
of verified information out there. Um, but it would be
like like imagine going to a car manufacturer when you
ask them how many cars do you make a year
and they say no, that's yeah, that's okay. The it
(16:10):
was what would be even worse to me, and it's
kind of what happened in this situation is, well, you know,
we make a lot of cars. We make cars for
rental companies, we make cars for consumers, we we make
cars for you know, big corporations, for fleets, we make
cars for a lot of things. Then there's this whole
other category that it is just a black hole. You
(16:34):
will never know where these cars are going, and uh,
don't ask again or we will have you killed. One
statistic I did find that was interesting is I believe
it is for glitter X. I did find the minimum
order that you have to place. It's ten pounds of glitter.
(16:54):
That gives me nightmares. That's the minimum order. Ten pounds glitter.
Didn't weigh anything. That doesn't weigh anything. Come on, that's
a good like that's a bachelorette party that when we
think about ten days, you could bench that. Yeah, yeah,
you can like brain somebody with ten What does ten
pounds of glitter even look like like? It's just it
(17:15):
looks like a disaster waiting to happen. You drop that
stuff and boom, it's the big bang, you know what
I mean? Your room becomes a personal observatory and it
will haunt the generations who come after you, because, as
we'll see, glitter ad Here's glitter stays in surprising places.
And speaking of nothing existing in a vacuum, that stuff
will exist in your vacuum forever ever. You know, you
(17:39):
just get a new vacuum. It's over man, that it's
it's gonna shred the interior, and if it doesn't, it's
just gonna be stuck. And every time you vacuum, it's
just gonna like drop make little droppings of glitter all
throughout your house. Don't even bother. Yeah, I even went through.
I was cleaning out some of my library and I
found um, I found a series of correspondencies in this book,
(18:05):
uh from from someone I used to know, very Gautier
about that. Uh, And the glitter was still there, and
it got like on my hands. I got on one
of my cats and I was like, this lady cursed
me and she knew she was doing it. But maybe
I'm being cynical. Point is, we don't have the statistics.
(18:26):
If you are a glitter insider, we would love to
hear your take. I'm even getting paranoid. I'm starting to
see glitter everywhere in the course of researching today's episode.
But we can say this, folks, a lot of people
use glitter all of the time, and we know that
consumption spikes massively around certain holidays, certain festive occasions. That
(18:49):
makes sense, but that is barely a sliver of the
inside world of glitter. Like if we think about the
uses of glitter, potential improven uses, this is where we
run into some really strange water. I mean, first off, okay,
we're talking uses, costumes, decorations, totally right, that's easy. Stationary pens, markers,
(19:12):
sparkle pins. You want to be the hottest Lisa Frank
fan in like middle school or whatever, you gotta you
gotta sparkle pen, right, Is that a thing? Still? I think? So,
you know where it's like suspended and kind of a
weird liquid. That's probably even some kind of alcohol. I
who knows what's in those things. But guys, I also
(19:33):
just googled glitter bombs, and that's a thing. There are
no less than like five companies that make these like
spring loaded gag gifts that you can send an enemy
in the mail that when upon opening, will burst and
explode in a fountain of glitter. Which that is that
those are? That is that means war? I mean that
is bad times. Who would you do that too? Who
(19:53):
deserves that kind of thing? I'll tell you a friend
of mine. I'm not going to name names because this
is your story about a friend of mine a few
years back sent. Uh, this couple sent their baby shower
announcement was something like a glitter bomb. Like it wasn't
proprietary glitter, but you know, you'd open the thing and
then it's like, yeah, a bunch of glitter the gender
(20:16):
reveal thing? Is it blue or pink glitter? Or this
is literally just announcing the birth. I was, you know what,
I was not even concerned with that part. I just
got in touch with my friend and I was like, dude,
what what is going on? What happened? And he said,
he said, you know, it's my wife's idea. She likes glitter.
And I said, okay, Well, first off, congratulations, you know,
(20:38):
I'm really happy for you. Secondly, I don't like glitter.
Please do not send this to me. Yeah, please don't.
But it was I don't know. Joe doesn't strike. He
wouldn't stay that our good friend from stuff to blow
your mind. You may recall him from our exce an
(21:00):
episode on the Bicameral Mind. Do check it out. We'll
we'll have to see Joe's take on glitter. Uh there's
another thing that might surprise well, this won't surprise anyone, right.
Makeup the makeup industry itself is uh so so ready
for good stuff. They don't want you to know episode.
(21:20):
But it makes sense. It makes up sense that glitter
would be in these cosmetic products. It gets weirder. Some
of the base elements of what we call glitter have
been used in spacecraft. They're also military applications for while
the US Air Force was using a glitter like substance.
(21:42):
Now they want to be taken seriously, which we understand.
So they didn't call it glitter. They called it chaff.
That would be really funny if in the original Top Gun,
you know, or with some of these movies, they're like
hit them with a glitter, hit him with the Dude,
that stuff gets in your eye and you inhale it.
I mean that could be a deadly weapon if used correctly. Propulsive, Yeah,
(22:07):
confuse the heat seeking missile and enemy radar. Sure. It
also reminds me of in Breaking Bad, you know, when
you see them gathering all the materials they need to
make meth. I believe, like aluminum sort of like fragmented
aluminum that looks a lot like glitter is also a thing.
So there is, you know, a version of this that
isn't for public use. It is more for like industrial
(22:30):
kind of chemical manufacturer as well. Yeah, and of course
the US Air Force, being a serious outfit, is not
going to say that they have jets farting glitter bombs
out to bedevil satellites and radar guided missiles. But it's
(22:51):
something very much like that is happening. It is it
is jet farts. So uh. There was also known as
chem trails, also known as ken trails. There we go.
We solved it. So big. Thank you to a journalist
over at Slate, Henry Grebbar, who looked into this and
found that the Department of Defense, as OFEN has only
(23:15):
one supplier of chaff of you know, glitter, and this
is a place called easter Line Defense Technologies, and they
have a subsidiary called arm Tech. And when Henry reached
out to arm Tech and to their parent company, he
was able to confirm that their chaff is made of
(23:38):
metallized class fibers, so much closer to the old school
glass glitter and definitely something you do not want in
your body, nor in the body of a loved one,
because eating glass is spoiler bad for you. Yeah, it's
like a prison thing, like away in a slow murder.
Somebody to like them ground glass or like put it
(24:01):
in their food, because even if you can't detect it,
you'll literally like to eviscerate your inside slowly over time.
So military aircraft are just shooting that stuff out every
once in a while, and even in testing over I
guess mostly the desert here in the US and in
other parts of the world, they're shooting it out there
in the atmosphere. They're helping the sand matt and that's
what we're gonna find sand. Okay, this is one of
(24:24):
the weird ones for us, but anyway, we're not even
this is a microplastic, right, I mean, that's that's what
we're talking about here, correct. Yeah, the modern Yeah, the
modern glitter as we think of it now, uh, is
getting everywhere. It might seem ephemeral when you are around it,
but don't be fooled. Especially the plastic based stuff. It
(24:45):
takes about a thousand years to completely biodegrade. It is
a combination of aluminium and plastic. Most often, so depressingly,
it starts off as a micro plastic. And there are terrible,
terrible facts about microplastic. We've done them in previous episodes. Uh,
there was a study that showed this stuff is small
(25:09):
enough to become airborne into the water system the next
time it rains. As a matter of fact, regardless of
where you're living there, there are microplastics in that water.
So don't you know, look out up and open your mouth.
Just be careful and like, that's not even our reveal.
And through the water cycle, that stuff ends up back
(25:30):
in the atmosphere and then kind of essentially cycles back
in every single time. Fish and children in you, your
loved ones, your dog, plants, any living thing. But it
might surprise your folks to learn that we are not
focusing on the environmental consequences of this. Do check out
(25:52):
our microplastics episode if you are having too good of
a day instead. Today we are asking who is the
biggest customer of this mysterious substance? Who is buying all
this glitter? You don't pause for a word from our
sponsors and heads up, folks, you might want to strap it.
(26:16):
Here's where it gets crazy. Edit me here, Paul, who's
the biggest customer glitter? No one knows. It's true, folks.
You know, I, like many people who are not in
the glitter industry, first learned of this strange mystery thanks
to some great work over at the New York Times
and the Cut In So most of the glitter that
(26:40):
we're aware of here in the States comes from a
couple of different places, and most of it is built, built,
cut manufactured in New Joysey. Uh they actually the I
think the biggest too, are in New Jersey? Correct Or
is that just the two that are in town been biggest? Uh?
The biggest to death really in the United States? Excellent? Excellent?
(27:04):
So we we we know the names of these. We
got meadow Brook and meadow Brook. That's the same dude,
Henry that we're talking about earlier. That's the company. It's
just kind of, you know, gone down the line. Uh.
And then the other one is called glitter X. Glitter
X not like SpaceX. It's like glitter e X. It's
like one word right right, like you have a glittery X. Uh.
(27:28):
So glitter X is the younger of the two companies,
founded in nineteen sixty three. Both companies are weirdly secret
about some things. This might surprise a lot of us
in the audience today because I think many people tend
to associate glitter with lighthearted, if occasionally annoying fun. Glitter
X is little willy wonka about their process, not as
(27:52):
much as Meadowbrook, but they don't want people on the
outside to see how glitter is made, including their clients.
They also don't reveal the names of those clients, and
per the leadership of glitter X, that is a request
of the clients themselves. We do know Revlon consented to
be identified as a glitter X customer, and this this
(28:15):
prompts me to float our very first theory out here.
I'm gonna pitch it to you, guys. Fairies are real.
Pixie dust is a thing. These companies are grinding up
the bodies of fairies and selling those parts in tiny,
tiny parcels. Yeah, okay, cool, Okay, I'm not buying it.
(28:36):
Ben it. Wow. Okay. Well, if we're talking about Revlon
and we know that glitter is like not good to
be consumed or inhaled or whatever, I would think their
use would be having it be suspended in some lip
gloss or cosmetic of some kind, which I guess if
it's on your eye, you're not the chances of you
(28:57):
eating it are inhaling it are very unlikely. You're not
gonna absorb it through your skin. But is it that
kind of stuff for like a like an eyeshadow or
something like that. Definitely not a lip class because you'd
be looking on your lips and then you would likely
consume him. I think for many people, if we're talking
about the sparkling genre of glitter, it's pretty apparent when
you see something glittering, right, humans are prime uh hardwired
(29:20):
to identify it. So you see paint on a car
or a boat, you can tell that it's shiny, right, uh.
You see maybe some makeup of some sort, maybe nice
shadow to that point, and you can tell it is
shiny for some reason. This this is part of the mystery,
(29:45):
right does a company wants people to know that they
have glitter? Well? Glitter X claims that, uh, the reason
they are so uptight or so close to the chest
about who is buying all this stuff they make is
due to the demands of the clients themselves. And I
(30:06):
think this is understandable. So companies don't want other competitors
in their industry to know what glitter is in their
products because it's uh, it's insider info, and it can
help your competitor make something very close to or closer
to your own unique project. And this is where we
(30:27):
get to one of the most fun parts of this
article by Katie Weaver. Credit where it's due. Katie Weaver,
the journalist who investigates this story, has a beautiful moment
that I suggest we do as a dramatic reenactment between
her and Lauren Dyer, who is a manager at glitter
(30:47):
x at the time. Who wants who wants to play Weaver?
Who wants to play Dire? Oh deal, It's choice. I
love us exchange though it is so bizarrely kg it
makes no sense? Could I be dire? Is that a
totally not you're feeling. You feel we've arresque. Thanks so
much for taking the time to speak with me, miss Dyer.
(31:08):
That's not part of the just like to have this
conversations mainly, you know, just here to to to shed
a little light, you know. I really thank you, Yeah,
a very sparkly light. And I love what you do.
I love I love your your company. Um, and I
love the things it's it's it's one of my favorite things. Um.
So can you tell me which industry is your biggest market?
(31:30):
Oh god no, no, absolutely no, no, I can't. I
know who it is, but I cannot. I cannot divulge
that information. Okay, but you know what industry is your
biggest market? Uh huh oh yeah, and you would never
guess never. Let's just leave it at that. Well, why
(31:53):
can't you tell me because they don't want anyone to know.
Dont dont that it's glitter well and well done, folks.
Uh what is this it? What is this? Oh? My god?
I mean editorialized a little, but that is the basis
of the conversation. DIYer goes on to say, um, she
seems tickled to know a secret. She also goes on
(32:18):
to almost reveal more than she meant to. There's definitely
an I've said too much moments there when when we
were asked at yeah, but I really can't tell you,
which is just weird. It's like why even go there.
(32:38):
I mean, I guess her. You know, a PR person's
job is to sort of be the human face of
like a monolithic company, and that's what this person is doing. Okay,
job at sort of making a little bit of a
joke about it. But then ultimately just like there's a
line that they are not willing to cross, and that
line becomes very especially if it's a client demand, right
you you have you might have some hard lines, some
(33:01):
bright lines that you cannot cross, even if you don't
think it's a big deal. This happens all the time
when businesses work together. So without official confirmation from either
glitter X or Meadowbrook, which is somehow again even more
tight lipped, we are left with some intriguing theories. First,
(33:21):
we have to consider it appears to be a request
of the clients. Companies out there don't want to be
identified as glitter consumers, and this is just this could
just be a specific manufacturer something that obviously have glitter
elements in it, doesn't want their competitors to get the
(33:42):
inside info. And then maybe, for instance, just freestyling here,
maybe they buy up all the glitter, right, and now
you you have lost a key component of one of
your product ingredients. But the most intriguing question is something
else is there or some industry that uses glitter in
(34:02):
a way the consumers or the public wouldn't like. For example,
boat paint has been proposed as like as some sort
of hidden buyer of glitter, but it's probably not. Actually,
I'm gonna say, it's definitely not the biggest consumer. Honestly,
most people also wouldn't care, nor would they be especially
(34:23):
surprised to learn there was glitter and paint. Well, certainly
we've seen you know, candy paint that they call that,
you know, in certain types of cars um that that
are that have clearly some sort of suspended shiny you know,
kind of like substance in them. You know, I mean,
that's not that surprising that that's the thing that we
already know glitter is bad for the environment. So it's
(34:44):
like to go a step further and be like, no,
we don't want anyone to know that we're using glitter.
Is it because it's a bad look? Is it a
trade secret? Like? What is it? I don't get it.
I think that's the big question here. And it does
feel as though it sounds like an n d A
thing to me, like it's a trade secret, and and
(35:07):
maybe it's not as nefarious as we think it might be.
Or well, let's keep going. I want to get to
the speculation section. We're really just diving into our pet
theories about what it is. And last thing for me
really quickly, like even with like a trade secret, like
a Coca Cola recipe or something like that, you'll have
certain ingredients that are on the list on the back,
(35:30):
and you'll have like a number of calories. But then
there'll be some little vague part in the description of
the ingredients that will be like special herbs and spices
or whatever it might be. But usually you kind of
know what category of material you're dealing with, you know
what I mean, Like this seems to go beyond that
in an intriguing and kind of scary To answer that
(35:51):
earlier supposition, it is likely a a mixed melonge of
multiple considerations. What we're gonna do now is pause for
a word from our sponsor, and to your suggestion, Matt,
we're going to dive into some of the uh wilder speculation.
We're entering rabbit hole country. We have a return sparkling, shiny,
(36:23):
uh shiny and chrome uh. The wilder speculation goes through
a number of different things. One of my favorite that
I feel is disturbingly plausible goes to the military industrial
complex and law enforcement. Let's just rip that band aid off.
Here's our big reveal. What about bombs? What about explosives?
(36:45):
This can be a way to track an explosion. It's
kind of similar to a thing that KGB did during
the Cold War. They would use this uh substance that
had the street name spy dust, and would use this
to trace American agents who are behind the curtain, behind
the Iron curtain. And it's some versions of it show
(37:08):
up an ultraviolet light, but you would never know it
could be used to track you. If you got dusted,
you would not you would not immediately clock it the
same way an unfortunate victim of of of a crime
mighty powdered glass mm hmm. And one of the things
that that spokesperson for Glitter X was willing to say
(37:29):
was that it's used sometimes in like animal feed so
that they can like track it in their poop. That
was a weird one, Like like, that's very interesting, and
that sort of speaks to this, like the indestructibility of glitter,
which is fascinating to me. Like it it cannot be.
It's like neither created nor destroy I mean, it's certainly created,
(37:51):
but once it exists, it's just there and then it
will it will leave a trail, you know, wherever it
ends up, and so you can use that to say, Okay,
this is where the thing went. And I think this
is incredibly important, like going back to military uses, law
enforcement uses, forensic uses. Uh, there's something people need to
(38:11):
know about. They're called micro tagg iNTS. Micro tagg Ins
are a multilayered tiny micro glitter thing added to commercial explosives.
This means that if somewhere, if someone were to, say,
use dynamite in the commission of a crime, they could
(38:32):
unknowingly leave evidence behind. And you don't need a ton
of sophisticated gear to detect these things, Like a serviceable
microscope will help you if you know what you're looking for.
This um persistence of glitter is something forensic investigators love
the same reason a lot of people hate it. It
(38:52):
establishes a great trace in fact, in real life, not
some Law and Order episode. In real life, glitter has
been used multiple times as evidence to help seal the
deal on criminal investigations. And so it's a really interesting
concept because, as we said, there are over twenty thousand
different types of glitter, right, And if you're let's say
(39:13):
you're manufacturing explosives and you put a different kind of
glitter in every batch of explosive that you put out,
being able to then track that stuff, that's a that's
a really it's a great idea. It's like ballistics, you know,
or it's like a way of like understanding where the
bullet was manufactured once you've pulled it out of the
wall or whatever. What kind of like rifling is on
(39:35):
the barrel of the gun, like these like certain little
kind of like indicators. Yes, but now imagine if you
take that out a little further and you think about warheads,
explosives that are used in missiles that are fired, bombs
that are dropped, maybe a grenade that goes off somewhere,
or even a flash bang or something like that that's
(39:57):
used by law enforcement. If you if you start associating
glitter with all of those things that can maim, that
can cause death, that can you know, be used as
a you know, a power of the state for control.
You may not think about glitter at the Elton John
Farewell concert in the same way. Right, It's not as
exciting anymore. It's not as fun anymore. It's like, oh, yeah,
(40:20):
so I can imagine why explosive manufacturers wouldn't want anybody
to know that they use a lot of good point.
Oh that's the reason, you're Yes, there's another reason though,
and it's the same as market competition. You wouldn't want
somebody to be able to mimic you're using, Yeah, mimic
your work, because then you could say, set up a
(40:41):
false flag pretty easily. It definitely makes it easier than
it would have been. So this is real, Like it's
the I know, I know there was some skepticism in
our group when I was like hyping up this glitter thing,
and I said, we got to talk about it. But
I hope we're delivering here, folks. Uh, there's another weird thing.
We gotta tell you this. This one made no sense
(41:02):
to me. First, what if what if glitter? What if
the primary consumers of glitter are using it to make sand?
Full disclosure, We're kind of walking out of our way
here to hip you to some weird sand facts. Don't
let the Sahara fool you didn't know this until recently.
(41:22):
Earth is slowly running out of sand. I know, I know,
Earth has been in a fire sale for a while,
and it was running out of all sorts of stuff.
What was it, matt helium running out or hydrogen? It's
helium running out of that stuff. Uh. People are concerned
about potable or drinkable water, fertilizing fertilizer as well. Right,
sand is uh the second most consumed natural resource on
(41:48):
the planet. Number one is water. Number two, as weird
as it sounds, is sand. So what if it makes sense?
I mean you sand to make glass first of all? Yeah,
use sand to make uh you know, sandboxes, that's one.
Sand castles, um? Yeah, sand dunes are I mean no,
(42:13):
But seriously, sand is a manufacturing um. It's an important
manufacturing component. Use it to lubricate things, you know what
I mean, like in the industrial situation, to make things
slide off the line. Easier or not stick, you know,
I mean things like it's in masonry of course. Yeah.
Uh So the idea in this theories that glitter could
be used as a component to sand. Honestly, this argument
(42:36):
is kind of spitballing, just in my opinion. This is
again our excuse to talk about sand facts. But but
there's something else. That's something that we want to thank
a redditor for a redditor named Whooping Willow. We do
not know Whoops, but uh but I feel like we're
familiar enough to call you that. I hope. I hope
(42:57):
that feels good. I hope that's nickname you like, uh,
tip of the badger bags you Whoops because you or
we can call you w W. You built an intriguing
case for, of all things, the food and beverage industry.
So let's walk through this. Let's see what we think.
Whoops is building an argument that the primary secret consumer
(43:20):
of glitter is the food and beverage industry. Okay, guys,
hold on before we do that, and we're going to
get to that. So it's obviously a play on weeping Willow. Right,
I think do you think it's a whipping crane? It
could be like but it's like whooping, like a switch
getting from getting getting kicked. Yeah, well like yeah, getting
(43:42):
you're getting you're getting a whooping. I think couldn't that
be w h U P P I N until I
think it's a colloquial I think it depends on where
what part of the global what different people are talking
about whooping? Uh? If they're not from eighteen hundreds, uh,
Western Europe, then they're not going to have the g,
(44:04):
the hard g at the end. That's a little too
what you guys like, who I hope you like it now.
Whoops is great, but I think whooping cough or whooping
crane it's Look, the fact that we've talked about it
for this long implies that there's a lot of great
hidden meaning in this reddit handle. So kudos to you.
(44:24):
But what what what did this individual assemble? Right? Whoop? Whoop? Alright? So, uh,
Whoops says, look at this, let's uh, we already know
that glitter X isn't gonna spill the beans or toss
their confetti or whatever. So Whoops looks at meadow Brook
and says this website and we confirm this. You can
(44:46):
check this website today if you like. Uh, their website
has nine primary applications for glitter, cosmetic, adhesive, fashion, floral, reading, card, fiberglass, craft, printing,
and errors all and then they list the different types
of glitter, which are all pretty much what you would expect,
including biodegradable. This is what wholps finds interesting. Meadowbrook does
(45:13):
sell biodegradable glitter, but doesn't list food or drink as
an application. That's true. Also, if you go to the
page what's called like the color card for biodegradable glitter
and specific, you will see that the website list the
names and phone numbers for sales inquiries. And this is
(45:34):
the only part of the site that lists those specific
contact numbers that contact information the email and stuff. So
if biodegradable glitter as a thing, why not make all
glitter biodegradable? Does it limit you in your color palette?
Is it less fun? Inherently? I don't I don't get it, Like,
(45:56):
why why why are people still making non biodegradable glitter,
knowing what we know about how long it takes for
glitter to biodegrade and how horrible microplastics are for the environment,
less cost effective perhaps at an economy of scale that
would be one of the first guess is right, probably
more expensive. Yeah, so this isn't water tight proof. But
(46:18):
it had Whoops wondering, Uh, it had Whoops wondering whether
this was because this specific reach out was because food
manufacturers didn't want to be on the books putting their
information on a website. They wanted to just call you know,
(46:40):
Johnny Glitters and get there, get the glitter added to
this cereal. I don't know if I mean this is interesting.
Whoops has other stuff they mentioned, like there are a
lot of flavor and fragrance companies in New Jersey. New
Jersey has three times the national average of employment in
those into trees in particular. But there's one thing we
(47:02):
have to point out. Biodegradable glitter is not the same
as food safe glitter. Necessarily, they should not be conflated.
There is edible glitter that's used in like cake making
and like you know, cocktails and stuff. It's it's like
called edible glitter, and it is again, it doesn't come
in as many varieties of of of of shapes and
sizes and you know colors, but it is a thing
(47:26):
and it's a very different manufacturing process. I'm just thinking
about all the things I look at that are shiny,
and uh, I happen to have a twenty dollar bill here.
I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. Okay, I'm
looking at this thing and I can't tell if it's
(47:48):
really shiny or if my mind is telling me that
it's shiny in this moment because I'm looking for it.
You know, if I've got some raphic bits, the plastic
key type bits. So what we're talking there's a little
on a twenty, at least the newer versions of a twenty.
There's a gold bits part the bottom here that looks shiny,
but it doesn't look like glitter necessarily metallic flake of
(48:11):
some kinds, but the whole thing has like a sheen
to What about the security strip that because if it's
a if it's a twenty, it's a high enough denomination
that security strip. I can teach you how to take
the teach you how to take him out if you want.
It won't be very healthful the tweezer, I believe you
could just go in the side you want a closer look.
(48:34):
So but yeah, yeah, the currency maybe using something like this,
of course paint, but paint is not super surprising. If
it's not the food industry, Yeah, then what could it be? Uh,
this wolves makes a very compelling case for thinking about this.
Um Could it be that cosmetic manufacturers don't want customers
(48:58):
to know that various top tier exfoliants or whatever, or
just basically glitter a little bit of snake oil or
panacea to make or placebo rather to make you make
you feel like it's worth it to pay fifty dollars
a bottle. Maybe, but those have to pass f d
A you know tests, and I don't think the FDA
(49:20):
would give a pass to something that had something that
carcinogenic in it. Exfoliants are usually like pummus or some
kind of you know, organic material, and they have to
pass some level of rigor with with the FDA. So
I don't know that I necessarily believe that. Yeah, I'm
still on the fence myself, because there are other things
(49:42):
that we have to consider. Maybe the bulk of this
investigation is going in the wrong direction. People think of
glitter as always sparkling, but that's not the case. If
you look at and this is coming from the CEOs
of glitter X, if you look at clear glitter, the
clear stuff that will become glitter before he gets colorized
and all that jazz. It looks a lot like tiny
(50:04):
pieces of a dead jellyfish. You could also make Matts
glitter m A T T E. Uh yeah, just well,
it's not like because you have a sparkling personality, Matt.
This stuff is flat and dull, but it's still technically glitter.
We just haven't added the shiny, So it could be.
It could be that opens the door. It could be
(50:25):
a number of other things. And at this point, like
we don't know the answer. I like explosives for it.
I like military applications that makes sense. The tracking quality,
oh god, the tracking man. It Also it feeds into
our whole annoyance with glitter, the fact that it just
can't get rid of it, and it's like a breadcrumb trail.
(50:47):
And and like the fact that, like like with ballistics,
you would not want some other manufacture to know which
one was yours, because then they might use the same
one and then it would be they might get blamed
for something that that they were not responsible for. And
again I want to say responsible. We know manufacturers weapons
don't typically take responsibility for anything, but it's a liability yeah,
(51:08):
it's and it's a you know, it's a security risk too,
right if it's in impairing the potential operation of whatever
you're using, and we unfortunately have to be vague about that.
No one has solved this. If you again, if you
are a glitter insider, we hope this is at least
giving you a chuckle. We would also love to hear
(51:31):
from you, because we can draw the following conclusion. One
thing is for sure when it comes to glitter, there's
definitely stuff they don't want you to know. And I've
got to ask you, Matt, I've got to ask you know.
I know this was one of those we work together
pretty closely, folks, so we are we're always kind of
(51:54):
brain storing and cogitating. This is one of those episodes
where we're pitching it around. Nobody flat out said, no,
this is weird, don't do it. But there were some
on it, like very very diplomatic questions of what the
hell I thought it was mainly going to be in
the kind of like environmental you know, hazard area, but
(52:18):
this whole like is it in bombs thing? And we
don't know, but it's like, oh, I think this is
the quintessential stuff that I wants you to do, and
that whole conversation from that cut article. Really, when you
have that level of subterfuge, at that level of like
non transparency, you know, in a highly regulated world of manufacturing,
(52:39):
that's pretty rare and that really makes made my sight.
Do you guys think this was worth it? Yeah, it's
totally worth it. I think though we are being we
are taking the bait of Big Glitter. I think they're
worried that Ellen John is retiring and Madonna's going away. Yeah,
(53:02):
Big Glitter is worried that they're gonna lose a bunch
of market share because all these toothpaste. We didn't even
get to toothpaste. I think we may have mentioned dentifics
is once? Is it really that Big Glitter? It's like
these two companies, the ones that we're big enough to
make the conversation. Guys, I sent you a picture of
coal gate, a specific specific type of coal gate. It's
(53:25):
like shiny diamonds or some some craziness. What is it called?
Let me find it? Colgate makes It's called coal Gate, dirt,
dirt mouth, filth time. It looks like smaller versions of
those weird like plastic e melty breath freshener things kind
of suspended in toothpaste. Yeah, but you're not supposed to
(53:46):
swallow it, so what's the big deal? Not a problem? Yeah,
there was a toothpaste manufacturer got in trouble. Um it
may have been cold gate, right with with including a
glitter in this stuff. And again, like you said, Mat,
you're not has to eat it. But people started getting
glitter in their teeth, Like, this is not what I
signed up for. This is not what nine out of
(54:07):
tend dentists led me to believe was a solid move
on my part. Oh, you know, we didn't even talk
about Um we're because we're talking about trade secrets, right, Um,
car manufacturers paints are all proprietary, right, so Honda makes
different paints that Toyota, than Toyota, than Kia, than all
(54:29):
of these manufacturers. But I am noticing that newer models
of vehicles on the road today do seem even shinier
than they were in the past. Well with that, let
us know, folks. You see we here, we are here
at the precipice of the current investigation. Uh, this is
where we passed the sparkle pen to you. We hope
(54:49):
this slightly lighter episode finds you hail and hardy and
amid grand adventure, and we cannot wait to hear your thoughts.
Who is buying all this glitter? Let us We try
to be easy to find online. Correct. You can find
us on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter, and
you can find us on YouTube, where we exist under
the handle conspiracy Stuff. Check out our Instagram. We've got
(55:10):
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and the like. You can find that account at the
handle conspiracy Stuff Show. If the social media's aren't your thing,
(55:31):
you can give us a telephone call. Yes, that's correct.
You can uh speak directly to us through the magic
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(55:51):
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(56:13):
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(56:46):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Uh, shine bright like a diamond.
As I believe Rihanna said, we wanted to do a
(00:46):
fun one today, or at least I really did, especially
because we have some dark water ahead. So here we go,
no fooling. If you read the title, today's episode is
about glitter. Seriously, glittery water perhaps ahead as well. Oh yes,
glittery water before we get to the dark stuff, uh
towards the end of the year. Look, you know, some
(01:08):
people love glitter, some people hate it. But every single
person listening now we all know what we're talking about
when we say glitter. This shiny stuff has also been
called the herpies of the arts and crafts world, a
joke I appreciated because it does seem nolaf air use
the word insidious, with which I agree. It seems to
(01:30):
get everywhere, even when you don't want it to. Glitter
does not care about your consent. It doesn't care what
you're doing later that day, that week, or you know,
even months after that when you pick up that coat
because the weather has changed. Uh. You know the full disclosure,
fellow conspiracy realist. The three of us, well, the four
(01:52):
of us counting Paul, aren't especially glitter people. We don't
wake up and go to sleep dreaming of glitter. But
we uh, we learned fairly recently that glitter maybe much
more than a scintillating cousin of confetti. In fact, it
is associated with a surprising amount of mystery and conspiracy.
(02:15):
So first things first, here the facts. Riddle me this.
What what is glitter? What? What is it? Star dust?
Start pixieotogical star dust? It's created by the Faye people,
uh in trees presumably. Um, No, it's not that at all.
It's an industrial grade material basically that's uh cut into
(02:40):
tiny pieces that are impossible to recover or to remove
from wherever they find their way. Yes, and it's kind
of fun. Real name I guess it was fun trying
to put pH and th h together. That's that's not
a fun thing to do. Oh, I guess it is
an exciting thing to do for your mouth, but in
(03:02):
the end it's not fun for anybody who's listening. But
polyethylene tariff tholate, Yes, nailed it. Now, Aluminum metalized polyethylene
tariff tariff thalit. Yeah, metalized? What does that even mean?
Is it something either metal or it's not. How does
something become metalized? Like so potato chip bags or crisp
(03:25):
for our friends across the pond, Uh, they are metalized. Essentially.
What you do is you take aluminum and you evaporate
it in a very very thin layer across a substance, right,
a substrate. Uh. It's it's weird. It sounds like we're
just throwing a bunch of words at you without really
answering the question what is glitter? But okay, let's let's
(03:49):
get even Uh, let's be even less helpful. Uh. There's
a fantastic New York Times article several that informed our
research here, and one put it this way. As weird
as it sounds, reading this, you'll walk away with the
idea that glitter is made from well glitter. You start
(04:10):
with a big old sheet of this stuff, right like
a like a plastic or cellulo spasin, and then it's
been metallicized, often with aluminum, and then you just keep
cutting it, and you cut it smaller and smaller. The
New York Times article in specific said quote, big glitter
(04:31):
begets smaller glitter smaller, glitter gets everywhere. All glitter is
impossible to remove. Surreal. Remember that really embarrassing scene from
I think it's Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace
where Anakin is bemoaning sand, the idea of sand. You
can just replace the word sand in his little speech
with glitter, which I'm going to do. I don't like glitter.
(04:53):
I don't like glitter at all. It's coarse and rough
and irritating and it gets everywhere. Yes, well done. And look,
we we can give you a little bit of the
history of what we could call modern glitter. Uh. Most
folks agree the modern version of plastic glitter dates back
to the nineteen thirties. Uh. And and a big part
(05:15):
of that is due too, Like when you say modern glitter,
we're talking about kind of a plastic base. Um, a
lot of modern glitter really comes from shortages during during
global wars because people used to make glass glitter, little
shards of glass. They read they couldn't maintain trade supply
(05:36):
with Germany that was making a lot of glass shards.
So this guy we'll talk about in a second, he uh,
this guy named Henry, he starts making uh, plastic based glitter.
But if you look back through the crazy game that
we call humanity, this nuts so fat, then you will
see that people have been into shiny stuff. Uh most people,
(06:02):
I am not, but most people have been into really shiny,
gleaming stuff since before people wrote things down, before language
was invented, people were all about. People were part macked by.
I was about to say, your your, your pals, the
the what do you call them? There? What's going on?
Just just a guy who does a show with you.
(06:25):
We don't we don't need to you know what when
it comes to my past and be very glitter x
very meadow brook though we don't need to know. Isn't
that funny though, that there's this like little thing and
are deep in our reptile brains that just seeks the
shine man like gold rush is all based on the glimmer.
It's all based on that shiny stuff, and that's how
(06:45):
you know it's special. And glitter is essentially sort of
like gaming that part of our brains with something essentially worthless.
But that's sort of like gives us a similar dopamine
hit to the stuff that's actually quote unquote valuable. That's
why I end ancient times that you're talking about. They're
been like prehistoric times. That's why people decided to put
shiny on their face and on their arms and in
(07:07):
places they would make them shine to others. It's all
about being shiny for you. There. Weness is witness me,
witnessed me. I don't know. I didn't agree with his
religion until I saw his shiny wekness is that man's
onto something. Can we just put this to bed real quick?
It's Weenness is not a scientific term. I think we've
(07:29):
we surely have discussed this before, but I don't know
where that came about. But weenness is not actually an
official name for the part of your elbow. That's like
it feels no, that's true, that's true, and that's an
important fact to establish. This is the quality of discourse
you could expect from our show witness not a scientific
term so far as we know. Somebody fact check us there,
(07:51):
just in case I don't want to weanness doctor writing
to us and say, you know, actually I'm the leading
awaeness oologist of the southern New Jersey and you guys
are being quite offensive. Uh. There was one interesting thing
that I didn't I don't think we talked about in
the notes, but the there there's a fascinating theory that
(08:15):
the attraction to things that shine and reflect light in
that specific way comes from the need to find potable water,
like you could see water reflecting, and that might be partial.
I don't think it's a d percent explanation, but it
is really fascinating, you know. Um. But also to your
(08:37):
earlier point, Matt, ancient people have cosmetics. You know. They
wanted to pop, just the same way that you know
your friends, your loved ones. Maybe you like to pop
or make a statement when you enter a room. Uh.
All sorts of stuff was used. Malachite, hammatite, crushed beetles,
(08:58):
mica dust was very peeler for a time. The list
goes on. You know, we're at amology nerds here, folks
in the word in the English language glitter comes from
glitter in, which probably comes from an old Norse phrase glitra.
So we're talking always about a new iteration of an
ancient concept. Let's get back to our Let's get back
(09:21):
to our machine guy, though, can we introduce the guy
who in uh, can we introduce the guy who introduced
the modern world to modern glitter? Gonna just say first,
modern glitter, great name for like a new wave of
kind of synth band, modern glitter that if that doesn't
already existed, ship. Yeah, the guy in question, Henry F. Rushman, Oh,
(09:41):
Henry F. Henry invented a is New Jersey based He
invented a mechanical uh, cutting machine, essentially for paper and
for a photo film. Like if you ever, if you
remember your grade school days, Matt, you're doing the correct gesture,
(10:01):
right that that weird elbow arm thing that only existed
the slice stuff. It was not multifunctional, yeah, and only
existed behind the desk in like the office, the main
you know, and it was always like, you know, this
like sacred thing that looked so scary and dangerous and
lock and key. Oh god, yeah, it's like a little
(10:22):
mini guillotine, little kid fingers against that, I say, but
but there's also you know, this reminds me there's this
whole panopoly of these specific single use tools that teachers possessed.
They were there were vestments of power. Yeah, the whole punch. Uh.
(10:43):
The lamination machine is another one. That one was super
off the books for the civilian population. And overhead projectors.
I was just talking about that off air, hanging out
with some folks. Overhead projectors. You remember those. Yeah, they
always came on a cart kind of strapped down, so
you wouldn't like make off. So, uh, we're probably we're
(11:05):
probably giving some people some nostalgia here, and let's go
ahead and mind that vein. So this guy's machine, Henry's machine,
is pretty good, you know, Uh, but it does something
that he and his employees start to think of as stuttering.
So every so often, while this thing is cutting up
(11:25):
film and it's cutting up paper, it has a little
like shiver shiver fart, and it farts out these tiny
pieces of cellulose used in film. And so employees started
saving this stuff and they would use it on their
Christmas trees as artificial snow. That's pretty wholesome, especially for
(11:46):
our show, and we imagine we may get to this,
but like tinsel seems like the more elongated cousin to glitter.
Tinsel is like a similar kind of you know, metalized
kind of material that comes in these strands um that
you would all so of course used to decorate your
Christmas tree, but probably similarly chemically and weird. It's like,
(12:07):
finally the answer to the question no Italian asked, why
can't glitter be like more like spaghetti? Uh So the
look what this is? This is true. That's a really
good observation. We're already starting to see how this happy
accident acquires a number of applications. If you fast forward
(12:28):
to the modern day, there's not just one glitter. There
over twenty thousand different varieties of glitter that we know of,
and I feel comfortable saying that in the context of
this episode, some of yet to be discovered. There's a
whole periodic periodic table of elements of glitter, and all
the glitterati, all the all those in the know, the
(12:50):
glitter ologists and the wenlogists and so on, they they
know that there are other types of glitter that may
theoretically exist in this universe. And so we want to
thank them for their service and their hard work. Uh
finding the next Okay, this analogy is breaking down. Moving on, Well,
(13:11):
speaking of breaking down, I mean they're like you said,
then there's aluminum is probably the most obvious go to.
That like is easier to kind of like, you know,
wrap your head around. It looks like that. It makes
sense that you have stuff like titanium dioxide, iron oxide,
and bismuth oxy chloride. Oh finally good, Yeah, bismuth oxy chloride.
(13:32):
Our sponsor, Illumination Global Unlimited, wants you to know that
you can write to Illumination Global Unlimited dot com, slash
conspiracy and get fifteen percent off your bismuth oxy chloride needs.
That is not true, No one check it. Make sure
you have to make sure to read the disclaimer at
the end. It's a little long, but worth your time.
(13:54):
And it's worth your time your so the there there
are also a lot of shape right, just like you
know this, here's a good comparison, Campbell's soup. Right, Campbell's
soup has ends. Yeah, you got chicken and rice, You
got chicken and stars, You got chicken and noodles. You
can take these things just like noodles or just like
(14:18):
you know, the basic carbohydrate making up these things. You
can make g litter in any number of shapes. You want,
little stars, we got you. You want a little like
you want little bells, you got. You need some sparkly
tiny bells for the holidays or whatever, be any bell
you know, oriented occasion. Yeah, and so this is. And
(14:39):
of course again these all come with tons of different
color possibilities, tons of different elements with which these are manufactured.
But one thing that we ran into that really set
the tone or foreshadowed or mystery today is I don't
know about you, guys. I think we all wear I
(15:00):
was looking for some very basic statistics, typically not always,
but typically in any kind of consumer industry, it's pretty
easy to find usage statistics of some sort. For a thing,
the dairy Association really wants you to know how much
cheese milk. You know, how many eggs people are eating
(15:23):
this year versus last year. Not so with glitter that
they're incredibly hesitant. The glitter manufacturers are incredibly hesitant to
share even basic stuff like the exact sales numbers, um,
the exact amount of glitter made per year in general, um.
(15:43):
Even even the statistics that I was able to pull
didn't quite get us there, and there's not a lot
of verified information out there. Um, but it would be
like like imagine going to a car manufacturer when you
ask them how many cars do you make a year
and they say no, that's yeah, that's okay. The it
(16:10):
was what would be even worse to me, and it's
kind of what happened in this situation is, well, you know,
we make a lot of cars. We make cars for
rental companies, we make cars for consumers, we we make
cars for you know, big corporations, for fleets, we make
cars for a lot of things. Then there's this whole
other category that it is just a black hole. You
(16:34):
will never know where these cars are going, and uh,
don't ask again or we will have you killed. One
statistic I did find that was interesting is I believe
it is for glitter X. I did find the minimum
order that you have to place. It's ten pounds of glitter.
(16:54):
That gives me nightmares. That's the minimum order. Ten pounds glitter.
Didn't weigh anything. That doesn't weigh anything. Come on, that's
a good like that's a bachelorette party that when we
think about ten days, you could bench that. Yeah, yeah,
you can like brain somebody with ten What does ten
pounds of glitter even look like like? It's just it
(17:15):
looks like a disaster waiting to happen. You drop that
stuff and boom, it's the big bang, you know what
I mean? Your room becomes a personal observatory and it
will haunt the generations who come after you, because, as
we'll see, glitter ad Here's glitter stays in surprising places.
And speaking of nothing existing in a vacuum, that stuff
will exist in your vacuum forever ever. You know, you
(17:39):
just get a new vacuum. It's over man, that it's
it's gonna shred the interior, and if it doesn't, it's
just gonna be stuck. And every time you vacuum, it's
just gonna like drop make little droppings of glitter all
throughout your house. Don't even bother. Yeah, I even went through.
I was cleaning out some of my library and I
found um, I found a series of correspondencies in this book,
(18:05):
uh from from someone I used to know, very Gautier
about that. Uh, And the glitter was still there, and
it got like on my hands. I got on one
of my cats and I was like, this lady cursed
me and she knew she was doing it. But maybe
I'm being cynical. Point is, we don't have the statistics.
(18:26):
If you are a glitter insider, we would love to
hear your take. I'm even getting paranoid. I'm starting to
see glitter everywhere in the course of researching today's episode.
But we can say this, folks, a lot of people
use glitter all of the time, and we know that
consumption spikes massively around certain holidays, certain festive occasions. That
(18:49):
makes sense, but that is barely a sliver of the
inside world of glitter. Like if we think about the
uses of glitter, potential improven uses, this is where we
run into some really strange water. I mean, first off, okay,
we're talking uses, costumes, decorations, totally right, that's easy. Stationary pens, markers,
(19:12):
sparkle pins. You want to be the hottest Lisa Frank
fan in like middle school or whatever, you gotta you
gotta sparkle pen, right, Is that a thing? Still? I think? So,
you know where it's like suspended and kind of a
weird liquid. That's probably even some kind of alcohol. I
who knows what's in those things. But guys, I also
(19:33):
just googled glitter bombs, and that's a thing. There are
no less than like five companies that make these like
spring loaded gag gifts that you can send an enemy
in the mail that when upon opening, will burst and
explode in a fountain of glitter. Which that is that
those are? That is that means war? I mean that
is bad times. Who would you do that too? Who
(19:53):
deserves that kind of thing? I'll tell you a friend
of mine. I'm not going to name names because this
is your story about a friend of mine a few
years back sent. Uh, this couple sent their baby shower
announcement was something like a glitter bomb. Like it wasn't
proprietary glitter, but you know, you'd open the thing and
then it's like, yeah, a bunch of glitter the gender
(20:16):
reveal thing? Is it blue or pink glitter? Or this
is literally just announcing the birth. I was, you know what,
I was not even concerned with that part. I just
got in touch with my friend and I was like, dude,
what what is going on? What happened? And he said,
he said, you know, it's my wife's idea. She likes glitter.
And I said, okay, Well, first off, congratulations, you know,
(20:38):
I'm really happy for you. Secondly, I don't like glitter.
Please do not send this to me. Yeah, please don't.
But it was I don't know. Joe doesn't strike. He
wouldn't stay that our good friend from stuff to blow
your mind. You may recall him from our exce an
(21:00):
episode on the Bicameral Mind. Do check it out. We'll
we'll have to see Joe's take on glitter. Uh there's
another thing that might surprise well, this won't surprise anyone, right.
Makeup the makeup industry itself is uh so so ready
for good stuff. They don't want you to know episode.
(21:20):
But it makes sense. It makes up sense that glitter
would be in these cosmetic products. It gets weirder. Some
of the base elements of what we call glitter have
been used in spacecraft. They're also military applications for while
the US Air Force was using a glitter like substance.
(21:42):
Now they want to be taken seriously, which we understand.
So they didn't call it glitter. They called it chaff.
That would be really funny if in the original Top Gun,
you know, or with some of these movies, they're like
hit them with a glitter, hit him with the Dude,
that stuff gets in your eye and you inhale it.
I mean that could be a deadly weapon if used correctly. Propulsive, Yeah,
(22:07):
confuse the heat seeking missile and enemy radar. Sure. It
also reminds me of in Breaking Bad, you know, when
you see them gathering all the materials they need to
make meth. I believe, like aluminum sort of like fragmented
aluminum that looks a lot like glitter is also a thing.
So there is, you know, a version of this that
isn't for public use. It is more for like industrial
(22:30):
kind of chemical manufacturer as well. Yeah, and of course
the US Air Force, being a serious outfit, is not
going to say that they have jets farting glitter bombs
out to bedevil satellites and radar guided missiles. But it's
(22:51):
something very much like that is happening. It is it
is jet farts. So uh. There was also known as
chem trails, also known as ken trails. There we go.
We solved it. So big. Thank you to a journalist
over at Slate, Henry Grebbar, who looked into this and
found that the Department of Defense, as OFEN has only
(23:15):
one supplier of chaff of you know, glitter, and this
is a place called easter Line Defense Technologies, and they
have a subsidiary called arm Tech. And when Henry reached
out to arm Tech and to their parent company, he
was able to confirm that their chaff is made of
(23:38):
metallized class fibers, so much closer to the old school
glass glitter and definitely something you do not want in
your body, nor in the body of a loved one,
because eating glass is spoiler bad for you. Yeah, it's
like a prison thing, like away in a slow murder.
Somebody to like them ground glass or like put it
(24:01):
in their food, because even if you can't detect it,
you'll literally like to eviscerate your inside slowly over time.
So military aircraft are just shooting that stuff out every
once in a while, and even in testing over I
guess mostly the desert here in the US and in
other parts of the world, they're shooting it out there
in the atmosphere. They're helping the sand matt and that's
what we're gonna find sand. Okay, this is one of
(24:24):
the weird ones for us, but anyway, we're not even
this is a microplastic, right, I mean, that's that's what
we're talking about here, correct. Yeah, the modern Yeah, the
modern glitter as we think of it now, uh, is
getting everywhere. It might seem ephemeral when you are around it,
but don't be fooled. Especially the plastic based stuff. It
(24:45):
takes about a thousand years to completely biodegrade. It is
a combination of aluminium and plastic. Most often, so depressingly,
it starts off as a micro plastic. And there are terrible,
terrible facts about microplastic. We've done them in previous episodes. Uh,
there was a study that showed this stuff is small
(25:09):
enough to become airborne into the water system the next
time it rains. As a matter of fact, regardless of
where you're living there, there are microplastics in that water.
So don't you know, look out up and open your mouth.
Just be careful and like, that's not even our reveal.
And through the water cycle, that stuff ends up back
(25:30):
in the atmosphere and then kind of essentially cycles back
in every single time. Fish and children in you, your
loved ones, your dog, plants, any living thing. But it
might surprise your folks to learn that we are not
focusing on the environmental consequences of this. Do check out
(25:52):
our microplastics episode if you are having too good of
a day instead. Today we are asking who is the
biggest customer of this mysterious substance? Who is buying all
this glitter? You don't pause for a word from our
sponsors and heads up, folks, you might want to strap it.
(26:16):
Here's where it gets crazy. Edit me here, Paul, who's
the biggest customer glitter? No one knows. It's true, folks.
You know, I, like many people who are not in
the glitter industry, first learned of this strange mystery thanks
to some great work over at the New York Times
and the Cut In So most of the glitter that
(26:40):
we're aware of here in the States comes from a
couple of different places, and most of it is built, built,
cut manufactured in New Joysey. Uh they actually the I
think the biggest too, are in New Jersey? Correct Or
is that just the two that are in town been biggest? Uh?
The biggest to death really in the United States? Excellent? Excellent?
(27:04):
So we we we know the names of these. We
got meadow Brook and meadow Brook. That's the same dude,
Henry that we're talking about earlier. That's the company. It's
just kind of, you know, gone down the line. Uh.
And then the other one is called glitter X. Glitter
X not like SpaceX. It's like glitter e X. It's
like one word right right, like you have a glittery X. Uh.
(27:28):
So glitter X is the younger of the two companies,
founded in nineteen sixty three. Both companies are weirdly secret
about some things. This might surprise a lot of us
in the audience today because I think many people tend
to associate glitter with lighthearted, if occasionally annoying fun. Glitter
X is little willy wonka about their process, not as
(27:52):
much as Meadowbrook, but they don't want people on the
outside to see how glitter is made, including their clients.
They also don't reveal the names of those clients, and
per the leadership of glitter X, that is a request
of the clients themselves. We do know Revlon consented to
be identified as a glitter X customer, and this this
(28:15):
prompts me to float our very first theory out here.
I'm gonna pitch it to you, guys. Fairies are real.
Pixie dust is a thing. These companies are grinding up
the bodies of fairies and selling those parts in tiny,
tiny parcels. Yeah, okay, cool, Okay, I'm not buying it.
(28:36):
Ben it. Wow. Okay. Well, if we're talking about Revlon
and we know that glitter is like not good to
be consumed or inhaled or whatever, I would think their
use would be having it be suspended in some lip
gloss or cosmetic of some kind, which I guess if
it's on your eye, you're not the chances of you
(28:57):
eating it are inhaling it are very unlikely. You're not
gonna absorb it through your skin. But is it that
kind of stuff for like a like an eyeshadow or
something like that. Definitely not a lip class because you'd
be looking on your lips and then you would likely
consume him. I think for many people, if we're talking
about the sparkling genre of glitter, it's pretty apparent when
you see something glittering, right, humans are prime uh hardwired
(29:20):
to identify it. So you see paint on a car
or a boat, you can tell that it's shiny, right, uh.
You see maybe some makeup of some sort, maybe nice
shadow to that point, and you can tell it is
shiny for some reason. This this is part of the mystery,
(29:45):
right does a company wants people to know that they
have glitter? Well? Glitter X claims that, uh, the reason
they are so uptight or so close to the chest
about who is buying all this stuff they make is
due to the demands of the clients themselves. And I
(30:06):
think this is understandable. So companies don't want other competitors
in their industry to know what glitter is in their
products because it's uh, it's insider info, and it can
help your competitor make something very close to or closer
to your own unique project. And this is where we
(30:27):
get to one of the most fun parts of this
article by Katie Weaver. Credit where it's due. Katie Weaver,
the journalist who investigates this story, has a beautiful moment
that I suggest we do as a dramatic reenactment between
her and Lauren Dyer, who is a manager at glitter
(30:47):
x at the time. Who wants who wants to play Weaver?
Who wants to play Dire? Oh deal, It's choice. I
love us exchange though it is so bizarrely kg it
makes no sense? Could I be dire? Is that a
totally not you're feeling. You feel we've arresque. Thanks so
much for taking the time to speak with me, miss Dyer.
(31:08):
That's not part of the just like to have this
conversations mainly, you know, just here to to to shed
a little light, you know. I really thank you, Yeah,
a very sparkly light. And I love what you do.
I love I love your your company. Um, and I
love the things it's it's it's one of my favorite things. Um.
So can you tell me which industry is your biggest market?
(31:30):
Oh god no, no, absolutely no, no, I can't. I
know who it is, but I cannot. I cannot divulge
that information. Okay, but you know what industry is your
biggest market? Uh huh oh yeah, and you would never
guess never. Let's just leave it at that. Well, why
(31:53):
can't you tell me because they don't want anyone to know.
Dont dont that it's glitter well and well done, folks.
Uh what is this it? What is this? Oh? My god?
I mean editorialized a little, but that is the basis
of the conversation. DIYer goes on to say, um, she
seems tickled to know a secret. She also goes on
(32:18):
to almost reveal more than she meant to. There's definitely
an I've said too much moments there when when we
were asked at yeah, but I really can't tell you,
which is just weird. It's like why even go there.
(32:38):
I mean, I guess her. You know, a PR person's
job is to sort of be the human face of
like a monolithic company, and that's what this person is doing. Okay,
job at sort of making a little bit of a
joke about it. But then ultimately just like there's a
line that they are not willing to cross, and that
line becomes very especially if it's a client demand, right
you you have you might have some hard lines, some
(33:01):
bright lines that you cannot cross, even if you don't
think it's a big deal. This happens all the time
when businesses work together. So without official confirmation from either
glitter X or Meadowbrook, which is somehow again even more
tight lipped, we are left with some intriguing theories. First,
(33:21):
we have to consider it appears to be a request
of the clients. Companies out there don't want to be
identified as glitter consumers, and this is just this could
just be a specific manufacturer something that obviously have glitter
elements in it, doesn't want their competitors to get the
(33:42):
inside info. And then maybe, for instance, just freestyling here,
maybe they buy up all the glitter, right, and now
you you have lost a key component of one of
your product ingredients. But the most intriguing question is something
else is there or some industry that uses glitter in
(34:02):
a way the consumers or the public wouldn't like. For example,
boat paint has been proposed as like as some sort
of hidden buyer of glitter, but it's probably not. Actually,
I'm gonna say, it's definitely not the biggest consumer. Honestly,
most people also wouldn't care, nor would they be especially
(34:23):
surprised to learn there was glitter and paint. Well, certainly
we've seen you know, candy paint that they call that,
you know, in certain types of cars um that that
are that have clearly some sort of suspended shiny you know,
kind of like substance in them. You know, I mean,
that's not that surprising that that's the thing that we
already know glitter is bad for the environment. So it's
(34:44):
like to go a step further and be like, no,
we don't want anyone to know that we're using glitter.
Is it because it's a bad look? Is it a
trade secret? Like? What is it? I don't get it.
I think that's the big question here. And it does
feel as though it sounds like an n d A
thing to me, like it's a trade secret, and and
(35:07):
maybe it's not as nefarious as we think it might be.
Or well, let's keep going. I want to get to
the speculation section. We're really just diving into our pet
theories about what it is. And last thing for me
really quickly, like even with like a trade secret, like
a Coca Cola recipe or something like that, you'll have
certain ingredients that are on the list on the back,
(35:30):
and you'll have like a number of calories. But then
there'll be some little vague part in the description of
the ingredients that will be like special herbs and spices
or whatever it might be. But usually you kind of
know what category of material you're dealing with, you know
what I mean, Like this seems to go beyond that
in an intriguing and kind of scary To answer that
(35:51):
earlier supposition, it is likely a a mixed melonge of
multiple considerations. What we're gonna do now is pause for
a word from our sponsor, and to your suggestion, Matt,
we're going to dive into some of the uh wilder speculation.
We're entering rabbit hole country. We have a return sparkling, shiny,
(36:23):
uh shiny and chrome uh. The wilder speculation goes through
a number of different things. One of my favorite that
I feel is disturbingly plausible goes to the military industrial
complex and law enforcement. Let's just rip that band aid off.
Here's our big reveal. What about bombs? What about explosives?
(36:45):
This can be a way to track an explosion. It's
kind of similar to a thing that KGB did during
the Cold War. They would use this uh substance that
had the street name spy dust, and would use this
to trace American agents who are behind the curtain, behind
the Iron curtain. And it's some versions of it show
(37:08):
up an ultraviolet light, but you would never know it
could be used to track you. If you got dusted,
you would not you would not immediately clock it the
same way an unfortunate victim of of of a crime
mighty powdered glass mm hmm. And one of the things
that that spokesperson for Glitter X was willing to say
(37:29):
was that it's used sometimes in like animal feed so
that they can like track it in their poop. That
was a weird one, Like like, that's very interesting, and
that sort of speaks to this, like the indestructibility of glitter,
which is fascinating to me. Like it it cannot be.
It's like neither created nor destroy I mean, it's certainly created,
(37:51):
but once it exists, it's just there and then it
will it will leave a trail, you know, wherever it
ends up, and so you can use that to say, Okay,
this is where the thing went. And I think this
is incredibly important, like going back to military uses, law
enforcement uses, forensic uses. Uh, there's something people need to
(38:11):
know about. They're called micro tagg iNTS. Micro tagg Ins
are a multilayered tiny micro glitter thing added to commercial explosives.
This means that if somewhere, if someone were to, say,
use dynamite in the commission of a crime, they could
(38:32):
unknowingly leave evidence behind. And you don't need a ton
of sophisticated gear to detect these things, Like a serviceable
microscope will help you if you know what you're looking for.
This um persistence of glitter is something forensic investigators love
the same reason a lot of people hate it. It
(38:52):
establishes a great trace in fact, in real life, not
some Law and Order episode. In real life, glitter has
been used multiple times as evidence to help seal the
deal on criminal investigations. And so it's a really interesting
concept because, as we said, there are over twenty thousand
different types of glitter, right, And if you're let's say
(39:13):
you're manufacturing explosives and you put a different kind of
glitter in every batch of explosive that you put out,
being able to then track that stuff, that's a that's
a really it's a great idea. It's like ballistics, you know,
or it's like a way of like understanding where the
bullet was manufactured once you've pulled it out of the
wall or whatever. What kind of like rifling is on
(39:35):
the barrel of the gun, like these like certain little
kind of like indicators. Yes, but now imagine if you
take that out a little further and you think about warheads,
explosives that are used in missiles that are fired, bombs
that are dropped, maybe a grenade that goes off somewhere,
or even a flash bang or something like that that's
(39:57):
used by law enforcement. If you if you start associating
glitter with all of those things that can maim, that
can cause death, that can you know, be used as
a you know, a power of the state for control.
You may not think about glitter at the Elton John
Farewell concert in the same way. Right, It's not as
exciting anymore. It's not as fun anymore. It's like, oh, yeah,
(40:20):
so I can imagine why explosive manufacturers wouldn't want anybody
to know that they use a lot of good point.
Oh that's the reason, you're Yes, there's another reason though,
and it's the same as market competition. You wouldn't want
somebody to be able to mimic you're using, Yeah, mimic
your work, because then you could say, set up a
(40:41):
false flag pretty easily. It definitely makes it easier than
it would have been. So this is real, Like it's
the I know, I know there was some skepticism in
our group when I was like hyping up this glitter thing,
and I said, we got to talk about it. But
I hope we're delivering here, folks. Uh, there's another weird thing.
We gotta tell you this. This one made no sense
(41:02):
to me. First, what if what if glitter? What if
the primary consumers of glitter are using it to make sand?
Full disclosure, We're kind of walking out of our way
here to hip you to some weird sand facts. Don't
let the Sahara fool you didn't know this until recently.
(41:22):
Earth is slowly running out of sand. I know, I know,
Earth has been in a fire sale for a while,
and it was running out of all sorts of stuff.
What was it, matt helium running out or hydrogen? It's
helium running out of that stuff. Uh. People are concerned
about potable or drinkable water, fertilizing fertilizer as well. Right,
sand is uh the second most consumed natural resource on
(41:48):
the planet. Number one is water. Number two, as weird
as it sounds, is sand. So what if it makes sense?
I mean you sand to make glass first of all? Yeah,
use sand to make uh you know, sandboxes, that's one.
Sand castles, um? Yeah, sand dunes are I mean no,
(42:13):
But seriously, sand is a manufacturing um. It's an important
manufacturing component. Use it to lubricate things, you know what
I mean, like in the industrial situation, to make things
slide off the line. Easier or not stick, you know,
I mean things like it's in masonry of course. Yeah.
Uh So the idea in this theories that glitter could
be used as a component to sand. Honestly, this argument
(42:36):
is kind of spitballing, just in my opinion. This is
again our excuse to talk about sand facts. But but
there's something else. That's something that we want to thank
a redditor for a redditor named Whooping Willow. We do
not know Whoops, but uh but I feel like we're
familiar enough to call you that. I hope. I hope
(42:57):
that feels good. I hope that's nickname you like, uh,
tip of the badger bags you Whoops because you or
we can call you w W. You built an intriguing
case for, of all things, the food and beverage industry.
So let's walk through this. Let's see what we think.
Whoops is building an argument that the primary secret consumer
(43:20):
of glitter is the food and beverage industry. Okay, guys,
hold on before we do that, and we're going to
get to that. So it's obviously a play on weeping Willow. Right,
I think do you think it's a whipping crane? It
could be like but it's like whooping, like a switch
getting from getting getting kicked. Yeah, well like yeah, getting
(43:42):
you're getting you're getting a whooping. I think couldn't that
be w h U P P I N until I
think it's a colloquial I think it depends on where
what part of the global what different people are talking
about whooping? Uh? If they're not from eighteen hundreds, uh,
Western Europe, then they're not going to have the g,
(44:04):
the hard g at the end. That's a little too
what you guys like, who I hope you like it now.
Whoops is great, but I think whooping cough or whooping
crane it's Look, the fact that we've talked about it
for this long implies that there's a lot of great
hidden meaning in this reddit handle. So kudos to you.
(44:24):
But what what what did this individual assemble? Right? Whoop? Whoop? Alright? So, uh,
Whoops says, look at this, let's uh, we already know
that glitter X isn't gonna spill the beans or toss
their confetti or whatever. So Whoops looks at meadow Brook
and says this website and we confirm this. You can
(44:46):
check this website today if you like. Uh, their website
has nine primary applications for glitter, cosmetic, adhesive, fashion, floral, reading, card, fiberglass, craft, printing,
and errors all and then they list the different types
of glitter, which are all pretty much what you would expect,
including biodegradable. This is what wholps finds interesting. Meadowbrook does
(45:13):
sell biodegradable glitter, but doesn't list food or drink as
an application. That's true. Also, if you go to the
page what's called like the color card for biodegradable glitter
and specific, you will see that the website list the
names and phone numbers for sales inquiries. And this is
(45:34):
the only part of the site that lists those specific
contact numbers that contact information the email and stuff. So
if biodegradable glitter as a thing, why not make all
glitter biodegradable? Does it limit you in your color palette?
Is it less fun? Inherently? I don't I don't get it, Like,
(45:56):
why why why are people still making non biodegradable glitter,
knowing what we know about how long it takes for
glitter to biodegrade and how horrible microplastics are for the environment,
less cost effective perhaps at an economy of scale that
would be one of the first guess is right, probably
more expensive. Yeah, so this isn't water tight proof. But
(46:18):
it had Whoops wondering, Uh, it had Whoops wondering whether
this was because this specific reach out was because food
manufacturers didn't want to be on the books putting their
information on a website. They wanted to just call you know,
(46:40):
Johnny Glitters and get there, get the glitter added to
this cereal. I don't know if I mean this is interesting.
Whoops has other stuff they mentioned, like there are a
lot of flavor and fragrance companies in New Jersey. New
Jersey has three times the national average of employment in
those into trees in particular. But there's one thing we
(47:02):
have to point out. Biodegradable glitter is not the same
as food safe glitter. Necessarily, they should not be conflated.
There is edible glitter that's used in like cake making
and like you know, cocktails and stuff. It's it's like
called edible glitter, and it is again, it doesn't come
in as many varieties of of of of shapes and
sizes and you know colors, but it is a thing
(47:26):
and it's a very different manufacturing process. I'm just thinking
about all the things I look at that are shiny,
and uh, I happen to have a twenty dollar bill here.
I'm a big deal. I'm a big deal. Okay, I'm
looking at this thing and I can't tell if it's
(47:48):
really shiny or if my mind is telling me that
it's shiny in this moment because I'm looking for it.
You know, if I've got some raphic bits, the plastic
key type bits. So what we're talking there's a little
on a twenty, at least the newer versions of a twenty.
There's a gold bits part the bottom here that looks shiny,
but it doesn't look like glitter necessarily metallic flake of
(48:11):
some kinds, but the whole thing has like a sheen
to What about the security strip that because if it's
a if it's a twenty, it's a high enough denomination
that security strip. I can teach you how to take
the teach you how to take him out if you want.
It won't be very healthful the tweezer, I believe you
could just go in the side you want a closer look.
(48:34):
So but yeah, yeah, the currency maybe using something like this,
of course paint, but paint is not super surprising. If
it's not the food industry, Yeah, then what could it be? Uh,
this wolves makes a very compelling case for thinking about this.
Um Could it be that cosmetic manufacturers don't want customers
(48:58):
to know that various top tier exfoliants or whatever, or
just basically glitter a little bit of snake oil or
panacea to make or placebo rather to make you make
you feel like it's worth it to pay fifty dollars
a bottle. Maybe, but those have to pass f d
A you know tests, and I don't think the FDA
(49:20):
would give a pass to something that had something that
carcinogenic in it. Exfoliants are usually like pummus or some
kind of you know, organic material, and they have to
pass some level of rigor with with the FDA. So
I don't know that I necessarily believe that. Yeah, I'm
still on the fence myself, because there are other things
(49:42):
that we have to consider. Maybe the bulk of this
investigation is going in the wrong direction. People think of
glitter as always sparkling, but that's not the case. If
you look at and this is coming from the CEOs
of glitter X, if you look at clear glitter, the
clear stuff that will become glitter before he gets colorized
and all that jazz. It looks a lot like tiny
(50:04):
pieces of a dead jellyfish. You could also make Matts
glitter m A T T E. Uh yeah, just well,
it's not like because you have a sparkling personality, Matt.
This stuff is flat and dull, but it's still technically glitter.
We just haven't added the shiny, So it could be.
It could be that opens the door. It could be
(50:25):
a number of other things. And at this point, like
we don't know the answer. I like explosives for it.
I like military applications that makes sense. The tracking quality,
oh god, the tracking man. It Also it feeds into
our whole annoyance with glitter, the fact that it just
can't get rid of it, and it's like a breadcrumb trail.
(50:47):
And and like the fact that, like like with ballistics,
you would not want some other manufacture to know which
one was yours, because then they might use the same
one and then it would be they might get blamed
for something that that they were not responsible for. And
again I want to say responsible. We know manufacturers weapons
don't typically take responsibility for anything, but it's a liability yeah,
(51:08):
it's and it's a you know, it's a security risk too,
right if it's in impairing the potential operation of whatever
you're using, and we unfortunately have to be vague about that.
No one has solved this. If you again, if you
are a glitter insider, we hope this is at least
giving you a chuckle. We would also love to hear
(51:31):
from you, because we can draw the following conclusion. One
thing is for sure when it comes to glitter, there's
definitely stuff they don't want you to know. And I've
got to ask you, Matt, I've got to ask you know.
I know this was one of those we work together
pretty closely, folks, so we are we're always kind of
(51:54):
brain storing and cogitating. This is one of those episodes
where we're pitching it around. Nobody flat out said, no,
this is weird, don't do it. But there were some
on it, like very very diplomatic questions of what the
hell I thought it was mainly going to be in
the kind of like environmental you know, hazard area, but
(52:18):
this whole like is it in bombs thing? And we
don't know, but it's like, oh, I think this is
the quintessential stuff that I wants you to do, and
that whole conversation from that cut article. Really, when you
have that level of subterfuge, at that level of like
non transparency, you know, in a highly regulated world of manufacturing,
(52:39):
that's pretty rare and that really makes made my sight.
Do you guys think this was worth it? Yeah, it's
totally worth it. I think though we are being we
are taking the bait of Big Glitter. I think they're
worried that Ellen John is retiring and Madonna's going away. Yeah,
(53:02):
Big Glitter is worried that they're gonna lose a bunch
of market share because all these toothpaste. We didn't even
get to toothpaste. I think we may have mentioned dentifics
is once? Is it really that Big Glitter? It's like
these two companies, the ones that we're big enough to
make the conversation. Guys, I sent you a picture of
coal gate, a specific specific type of coal gate. It's
(53:25):
like shiny diamonds or some some craziness. What is it called?
Let me find it? Colgate makes It's called coal Gate, dirt,
dirt mouth, filth time. It looks like smaller versions of
those weird like plastic e melty breath freshener things kind
of suspended in toothpaste. Yeah, but you're not supposed to
(53:46):
swallow it, so what's the big deal? Not a problem? Yeah,
there was a toothpaste manufacturer got in trouble. Um it
may have been cold gate, right with with including a
glitter in this stuff. And again, like you said, Mat,
you're not has to eat it. But people started getting
glitter in their teeth, Like, this is not what I
signed up for. This is not what nine out of
(54:07):
tend dentists led me to believe was a solid move
on my part. Oh, you know, we didn't even talk
about Um we're because we're talking about trade secrets, right, Um,
car manufacturers paints are all proprietary, right, so Honda makes
different paints that Toyota, than Toyota, than Kia, than all
(54:29):
of these manufacturers. But I am noticing that newer models
of vehicles on the road today do seem even shinier
than they were in the past. Well with that, let
us know, folks. You see we here, we are here
at the precipice of the current investigation. Uh, this is
where we passed the sparkle pen to you. We hope
(54:49):
this slightly lighter episode finds you hail and hardy and
amid grand adventure, and we cannot wait to hear your thoughts.
Who is buying all this glitter? Let us We try
to be easy to find online. Correct. You can find
us on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter, and
you can find us on YouTube, where we exist under
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(55:10):
some fun. We've been doing some kind of extra shoots
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(55:31):
you can give us a telephone call. Yes, that's correct.
You can uh speak directly to us through the magic
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(55:51):
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(56:13):
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(56:46):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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