Frills are a horror to me, pink never warmed my heart like any blue or at the moment mostly green tones, but I confess: I've always had a weakness for glitter, mica and glitter. Secretly, because I would never step outside the door hung like a Christmas tree or shine like a rose beetle from head to toe; instead of a sequin dress, only shimmering jackets, socks or a tiny accessory, and that seldom. However, I let myself be enchanted by soap bubbles, I like to add a bit of glamor to gifts, and years ago I had a lot of fun turning an empty vaccination vial (after use!) Into a mini snow globe. In the end, the iridescent tinsel was convincing in the photo production, but several colors were tested in our test series, and so it sparkled in green for weeks in the editorial rooms,Blue, silver, gold, pink and red. Even armed with a cloth and vacuum cleaner, this stuff was hard to get at.

Sonja Kastilan

Responsible for the “Science” section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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Nature also shimmers, and there is a lot to discover in flora and fauna, but no play of colors is as fascinating as that of

Pollia condensata

.

The berries of this African plant shine in a very special blue, the deep shine of which does not fade even after decades in a museum, as Jeff Koons would like it to be for all his Pop Art works.

Her dazzling secret, which is based on structures and not on pigments, was only discovered in 2012 by materials researcher Silvia Vignolini and colleagues in

"

PNAS"

ventilated:

Pollia

berries have an iridescent effect due to a Bragg reflection.

And their intense color appears different from cell to cell, often blue, sometimes green or red, because the light is reflected back by several layers of cellulose fibrils that are embedded in a spiral in the cell walls of the outer pericarp and vary in thickness.

The berries have a pixelated appearance and simulate a nutritious abundance, as is typical for other berries, which is presumably intended to attract birds - for distribution - if they do not already follow the shimmer that is unique in nature into the undergrowth.

Glamorous, not just on New Year's Eve

As a professor of chemistry and biomaterials, Silvia Vignolini at the University of Cambridge not only researches such natural structural colors, including the strange white of a beetle and nice splashes of color. Instead, it also tries to translate knowledge into products, for example with eco-friendly cellulose films. That biomimetics should now be suitable for making the high-turnover cosmetics industry more sustainable sounds bizarre - until you start to think about where tinsel and mica made from tiny pieces of plastic or metal are everywhere. What a waste, what an environmental sin! Possibly a health risk? That would end if what Vignolini's team was already producing from wood waste on a larger scale would prevail: energy-saving, biodegradable, completely vegan!

How cellulose - a polymer based on sugar - can be transformed into brightly colored, shimmering particles with the help of chemistry and physics can be read in "Nature Materials" for the curious.

There the magicians from Cambridge recently reported that they were able to optimize their laboratory processes for industrial conditions and overcome format problems because the area of ​​a Petri dish is not enough, but meter-long lengths are required.

Transparent cellulose films are no longer rocket science, but to create photonic pigments with a glitter effect, special structures are required on the surface, i.e. a coating.

And the tinsel stays stable long enough to convince on the market: So it's going to be glamorous, not just on New Year's Eve.