Argyria is a condition that turns your skin blue, or grey, or something in between. It is caused by absorbtion of collodial silver, which is a tincture containing elemental silver in molecular form. It was sometimes prescribed in the past for such things as boosting your immunity, but there’s never been any proof that is has any benefit. Now it’s pretty much regarded as something to avoid; however it’s not hard to obtain or you can supposedly make your own with elementary chemistry.
But if you ingest enough of it, you might slowly turn grey
like this woman (currently alive and well), or blue
like this gentleman (died in 2013, but not from argyria).
There are other cases out there, but these two seem to be the ones you encounter if you google “argyria”. They were both prescribed silver compounds for different but not serious conditions, and the effects were gradual but irreversible. Once your skin turns color, there’s not much you can do about it. Otherwise it’s not harmful other than possibly getting reduced night vision and maybe a couple of side effects which haven’t been definitively proven. Still - it does kind of wreck your social life. However…
Maybe you’re the sort of person who wants to be edgy and get noticed. Maybe you’re a teenager who wants to look like the woman on the Black Sabbath album 'cause that would be awesome, and you’re not really capable of considering any long-term consequences. And tattoos are just so obvious, everybody has them so why not do something that changes your appearance from top-to-toe? I mean, literally! Why not consider argyria as a lifestyle option?
The gray lady pictured above would probably try to dissuade you from that. She even wrote a book about how argyria wrecked her life, although she’s married, now in her eighties, and adjusted to the fact that she gets stared at in public. The blue gentleman got tagged Papa Smurf and basically became something of a recluse. But of course, You wouldn’t mind the attention! And if there’s really no serious downside (better read up on it to make sure), why not go for it? Better than all that silly “cosplay” stuff - you’re not just trying to dress like some alien from your favorite Japanese manga comic book, you ARE that alien! Forever! How better to express your devotion - this is Commitment with a capital C.
Okay, now the question I have is, has anybody heard of anyone actually doing this? And if the answer is “no”, I hope I didn’t give anyone any ideas. Just what we need, another trend for people who feel like outsiders to jump on. I mean, there’s all sorts of weirdness out there, body modification and other stuff that didn’t really happen until the internet, then it almost became a challenge - who can spark the next big trend. Believe me, we haven’t run out of possibilities, not by a long shot.
