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Your 6-year-old child wants you to bake carefully decorated holiday cookies and cakes in the shape of the season. You found a cake decorating video on the Internet, but the ingredients it uses make you wonder if they are safe to eat.

The Food and Drug Administration wants you to be aware that some decorative glitter and dust advertised for food may actually contain materials that should not be eaten. Non-toxic does not mean edible, so if you are not sure about a product, please choose another product.

Many decorative glitter powders and dusts are sold under the names of gloss powder, disco powder, glitter powder, glitter powder, phosphor powder, glitter powder, pearl powder and petal powder through the Internet and craft and baking supply stores. In addition, various online teaching videos, blogs and articles advocate the use of these glitter and dust to decorate foods such as cakes, cupcakes and cake bars.

To view an FDA video about food decorations that should not be eaten, click here.

Some glitter and dust are edible and used exclusively for food. These products are made of safe edible ingredients. But others may not.

Edible or inedible You can use some simple methods to determine which ones are edible and which ones are inedible:

Buy, not bake? Talk to your baker and your bakery to discuss the types of decorative products they use in baked goods. Are they made with all edible ingredients?

If in doubt, please ask to check the labels of the decorative products to make sure they are edible. And understand the flash and dust products sold on the Internet. Before buying, please provide the manufacturer's ingredient information.

Instructions for Commercial Bakers The FDA reminds all commercial bakers that, as a food manufacturer, you are responsible for producing food that complies with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and applicable FDA regulations. Food manufacturers that contain unsafe ingredients may be subject to FDA enforcement actions to prevent unsafe products from entering the market.

If you have specific questions about the regulatory status of glitter and dust ingredients used in food decoration, please contact the Food Additive Safety Office at premarkt@fda.hhs.gov.

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