Sparkly Soap?

So I've had this strange thing happen.

You know how if you have little girls, eventually there are so many little costumes and other little girl princess-y stuff that has sparkles on it, and how eventually you just get used to the sparkles kinda showing up everywhere? You see a glint of a sparkle in a sunbeam on the floor, you catch a sparkly glint on her cheek? You see a sparkle on the dog's nose? (Or so I'm told by my friends who have had little girls for a while....)

Well a couple weeks ago, I noticed my hands were slightly sparkly. As in, I'm not sure if they're really sparkly or not. As in, it looks like I accidentally rubbed some neutral eyeshadow on my palm sparkly. As in, there is a strange sheen on my hands sparkly.

I was completely confused. These weren't actual individual pieces of glitter that I had gotten into and were stuck on my skin. This was more like the metallic sheen of a powdered mineral. Kinda reminded me of pigment powders for mixing in a media to paint or emboss with.

So where could I have possibly picked up this sparkly sheen on my hands? And why was it so brilliant even after a whole day of caring for Kaylee and constantly washing my hands?

Well, I started to get suspicious and decided that it had to be something different that I had recently incorporated into my life.

Guess what I had just done a few days previously to noticing the sparkles on my hands?

Yeah, that.

I had been to the mall and wandered into a 3 for $10 sale on hand soap at Bath & Body Works. We love their soap (well, certain flavors of it, anyway) and about twice a year I go in and stock up.

My "normal" flavors are Mandarin Orange and Cucumber Melon. Just the plain anti-bacterial stuff, not the moisturizing cream stuff or the foaming pump stuff.

This time, I decided to shake things up a little and got a bunch of flavors and a couple different types. Since it's winter, and my hands look like reptile skin, I opted to pick up a couple of the moisturizing soaps. Oh, and since I love citrusy scents, I got Kitchen Lemon for the kitchen.

One of the moisturizing soaps smelled so delicious... Warm Vanilla Sugar... mmmmmmmm. My hands smelled like candy after washing them.

Sparkly clean, they are.

Now why would a hand soap include sparkly stuff? And what is this sparkly stuff? Is it safe to eat? For I am sure that as I prepare food or touch my face or eat that I am consuming sparkly hand soap residue. And you can't actually see the sparkles in the soap... it's more like it's just left on your hands.

So if any of you out there make liquid moisturizing hand soaps, maybe you can clue me in. Why is my soap sparkly?