The Stuff Sparkles Are Made Of

Have you ever picked up a fancy holiday relic, and then discovered that your hands are covered in sparkly shit? You know…those itsy-bitsy shiny particles. Yeah. Those things. You can blow, rub, wipe, smear—it doesn’t matter! Glitter has a great reputation of pissing people off.

Think about it.

How many times have you looked down and gritted your teeth at a constellation of sparkles across the palm of your hand? Or…

…What about those red face inducing moments that occurred when you looked in the mirror and witnessed sparkly shiny things all over your forehead? It happens to the worst of us.

The holiday season is glitter’s breeding season

All sorts of colors are welcome. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. Even purple. The ultimate orgy of chromatic hues can be discovered on all sorts of objects. Nothing is sacred.

Have you ever thought to yourself: “Gee wiz! I wonder what this sparkly crap looks like up-close?”

Prepare to have your question answered once and for all. If we take a moment and study the photograph, then we can see that glitter is nothing more than reflective hexagonal pieces. That’s it. Although the nature of a piece of glitter can be considered boring—the amount of glitter that can take up a particular area is quite impressive. The image is highly magnified and it only represents a tiny fraction of the entire object. The entire image frame can fit comfortably inside your pinky finger nail.

The reflective power of a single piece of glitter is also clearly demonstrated. A single piece of glitter has the potential to outshine every other piece of glitter around it. When you set your eyes on a holiday card and see that optical telltale sparkle—this is what you’re looking at.

Ornaments? Check. Nutcrackers? Check. Christmas wreath? Check. Garland? You bet your ass. Glitter is everywhere. You can’t escape it….in fact…there’s a slight possibility you have a piece of glitter on you right this very moment. Go on. Look.

When you’re finished looking, then go ahead and squint your eyes at the image below this sentence.

Yeah…glitter don’t look so pretty, right? Perhaps at a distance, but once you get up close and personal…well…the view changes. Lovely. Not.

Imagine if the entire holiday season just exploded into a zillion pieces, which is not physically possible, but go ahead and imagine what it would like if the holiday season’s essence somehow reached critical mass, and then burst. What would it look like? Probably like a jumbled mess of glitter. We can all agree on that (right?).

Now that you got closer than ever before to the holiday season—enjoy the view at a safe distance and admire the stuff sparkles are made of.