In a TikTok posted this month with more than 2m likes, the fitness influencer Dalia Grande spritzed glitter all over her body while getting ready for a first date: “bc I’m at the age where they could be married (Married men HATE glitter)”, she wrote in the caption.
For the Cosmopolitan beauty editor, Beth Gillette, using glitter to snare a philanderer seems like a ploy straight out of Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell’s 2020 revenge fantasy, in which a woman played by Carey Mulligan uses her femininity to bait and con abusive men.
The subtext, for anyone who has never talked to a shiny mermaid at a Halloween party and gone home to discover that they, too, are now somehow covered in sparkles: cosmetic glitter transfers easily, leaving a trail of evidence from one woman to the next.
One user suggested pouring some loose glitter on the passenger side vanity mirror of a partner’s car, with the idea that it would make a mess should another woman open it to check her hair or makeup.
Or, as one commenter put it: “Married men don’t want to come home to their wives with fun glitter on them.”.
