You Should Never Eat Glitter Pills. Here's Why

No matter color it is, it's hard not to love glitter. The sparkly stuff always guarantees a mood boost, whether you're using it for makeup or for arts and crafts. However, in recent years, glitter pills have become a trend — with people trying to consume them. The main aim? Add some shimmer to their poop apparently (yes, really). Emily of Eat Glitter, a company that previously sold the pills, told Vocativ in 2014, "I have had customers ask for a refund because this did not happen." She added, "I can't honor these requests because I make no claims they will, and I explicitly advise against consuming them."

Unsurprisingly, doctors and medical professionals resoundingly agree. Put simply, "Glitter isn't food," Andrew Stolbach, medical toxicologist and associate professor of emergency medicine at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, stated to Refinery29. And there's absolutely no need for you to eat it.

Speaking to SheKnows, Marc Leavey, a primary care physician at a Mercy Medical Center clinic, compared glitter pills to cling wrap. "The plastic wrap that encloses your lunchtime sandwich is non-toxic, but you unwrap the food before eating it." He continued, "While there is food-grade glitter, made from starch and food-certified colors, this product, and others like it, likely has tiny plastic shards coated with glitter paint. Not toxic, per se, but certainly not edible." 

Basically, if you have one glitter pill, it's probably not going to significantly harm you. But, like so many pills, you don't know what's actually inside it, especially if you're buying it online from popular sites like Etsy. Is the glitter in the pills toxic or non-toxic? How is your body going to react? It's simply not worth the risk for a benefit that is, let's just say, completely pointless.