WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2014 -- It's been a holiday decoration staple for decades, and it turns out that silver stuff hanging from your tree has quite a storied past. Tinsel has been made out of everything from real silver, to lead to other dangerously flammable materials. This week's Speaking of Chemistry decks your halls with the history of tinsel. Check it out at http://youtu. be/ fql3aCuu1l0 . 
 
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 [+]Enlarge A modern package of Brite Star icicle tinsel, which does not contain lead. Credit: Brite Star Manufacturing 
 
 [+]Enlarge THE GOOD STUFF Brite Star’s vintage tinsel packaging. Credit: Brite Star Manufacturing Co. 
 
 Some call tinsel tacky and passé while others can’t imagine a holiday tree without the inexpensive decoration. 
 
 [+]Enlarge Credit: Carmen Drahl [+]Enlarge Credit: Courtesy of Carmen Drahl PHOTO ALBUM Michael J. Drahl (top), the author’s father, on Christmas 1947. Kathleen Fehr, née Flanagan, the author’s mother-in-law, attempts to lick lead tinsel. 
 
 But tinsel—named from the Old French word estincele, for sparkle—didn’t always come cheap. The program for the 1853 New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations includes silver and gold tinsel goods from Nuremberg and Weissenberg, in Bavaria, though it isn’t clear whether these were made from pure precious metals. Tinsel was in use as a tree decoration in Germany in the late-19th century, says Georgia State University historian Joe Perry, author of the book “Christmas in Germany.” Texts mention thin strips of tin-laminated sheet brass as well as silver-laminated copper wire woven through textiles, he says. The expense of a decorated Christmas tree likely kept tinsel from all but the wealthy. 
 
 Another choice for tinsel during this time was lead. German company Stanniolfabrik Eppstein received an imperial patent on lead tinsel in 1904. That tinsel consisted of a gray, dull lead alloy foil with shiny tin bonded on top, says Dirk Mälzer, chief executive officer of the firm’s modern-day descendant EppsteinFOILS. The other components of the lead alloy are no longer known, Mälzer says. The product was called Stanniol Lametta, from the Latin word for tin and an Italian term meaning “tiny blade.” 
 
 But lead-filled tinsel wasn’t German-only merchandise. South Philadelphia-based Brite Star Manufacturing was selling the tree bling “with a large component of lead” by the early 1950s, says Brite Star’s Judy Kinderman. 
 
 Lead-based tinsel was a hit. “It was beautiful,” says Susan Waggoner, author of “Handcrafted Christmas” and other books about the holiday’s history. “You had to put it on the tree one strand at a time,” she recalls. “It didn’t tarnish and it would hang down heavy, and you’d have that dripping, glittering icicle effect.” 
 
 By the 1960s, though, awareness of the risks of lead poisoning spelled the end for lead-based tinsel. The Food & Drug Administration reached an agreement with tinsel importers and manufacturers, putting an end to lead alloy tinsel in the U.S. in 1972. 
 
 The lead heave-ho-ho-ho got people thinking about other tree-trimming options. For instance, in 1969, Walter J. Schrenk of Dow Chemical patented iridescent Christmas tinsel prepared from combinations of polymers having a specified difference in refractive index. Even Stanniolfabrik Eppstein scrapped its imperially approved formula. In 1988, the firm patented tinsel made from an alloy of tin and antimony. Other merchants went back to basics: At least one German silversmith still markets real silver lametta. 
 
 [+]Enlarge TINSEL 2.0 Diagram from Stanniolfabrik Eppstein’s 1988 patent.Chemists at Stanniolfabrik Eppstein, today known as EppsteinFOILS, patented a tinsel made from an alloy of tin and antimony. The tinsel is shown hanging on a Christmas tree branch in this drawing in the U.S. patent. Credit: US Patent and Trademark Office 
 
 Most tinsel nowadays is made with fairly ordinary plastics. At Festive Productions, a family-owned firm in Wales, tinsel is made from polyvinyl chloride, says spokeswoman Cassie Hedlund. Plastic tinsel typically gets its shiny finish from metallization, which is performed by heating and evaporating a metal such as aluminum under a vacuum and condensing it onto the plastic to leave a thin coating. 
 
 Diehards like Waggoner miss the heft of classic tinsel. “The plastic stuff just floats in the breeze,” she says. Even EppsteinFOILS’ tin-antimony alloy couldn’t compare with the original. Sales were weaker by comparison, so the company ceased all production of tinsel in 2013. 

 Published on Dec 16, 2014 
 
 How is the shiny tinsel that decorates many Christmas trees made? Today it's mostly made of plastic. But did you know tinsel used to contain chemical elements like lead, aluminum, or copper? Find out all about tinsel's chemistry history in this very special holiday episode of Speaking of Chemistry. 
 
 
 
 Special thanks to the following for photos: 
 
 Materialscientist/Wikimedia commons 
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminiu... 
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper#m... 
 
 AlchemistHP/Wikimedia commons 
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#med... 
 
 Brite Star Manufacturing Co. (tinsel product photos) 
 
 Darron Fick/Flickr 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/thunder... 
 
 Jüppsche/Wikimedia commons 
 
 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil... 
 
 Rene Schwietzke/Flickr 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/rene-ge... 
 
 simpleinsomnia/Flickr 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/simplei... 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/simplei... 
 
 snapshotsofthepast/Flickr 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldeyan... 
 
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldeyan... 
 
 Carmen Drahl 
 
 Susan Waggoner 
 
 
 
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– A harmless symbol of Christmas cheer was once deemed so risky that the FDA had to regulate it. Tinsel once contained lead, which, as scientists realized in the 1960s, made it dangerous to kids. That prompted a deal between the FDA and tinsel makers to alter manufacturing methods, the American Chemical Society reports in a video. The 1972 change was at first kept secret, Popular Science reports, for fear "that many people preferring the lead variety would stockpile it," an official said at the time. Believe it or not, that wasn't the first time tinsel had posed a threat: One reason lead was used is that some kinds of tinsel used to be flammable. The flammable products came into use amid metal shortages during World War I. Before that, aluminum and copper were often used to make tinsel. These days, it's usually made of plastic, coated with a metal like aluminum. In case you were wondering, our word "tinsel" is derived from the Old French for sparkle, "estincele," and the American version of the holiday tradition likely comes from a German custom of putting silver on a Christmas tree to reflect candle lights. As one maker tells Chemical & Engineering News, tinsel has been quite popular following the Great Recession as an inexpensive decoration method. (There's a good chance your holiday decorations came from this Chinese town.)