How to Start a Glitter Business

We are here to give you all the glittery details on how to start a Glitter business. The first thing you need is an idea for your business. We have provided some starter ideas below but yours is sure to be different! Once you’ve come up with your idea, take some time to think about what it would take to get started.

How to Start a Glitter Business

1. Decide what kind of glitter you want to make

As much as this decision may seem obvious from the outset, it will affect your decisions and product lines for years and years down the line. The two main categories are: 

Chemical Glitter

Chemical glitters are the typical craft glitter you buy at the store. They’re made from plastic polymers, and they’re relatively cheap to both make and purchase. Typical chemical glitters include crystal effects, iridescent glitter, and holo glitter.

Mineral Glitters

Mineral glitters are made from ground-up minerals, typically glass or mica. They are much more expensive to make than chemical glitters, but they are also more reflective and refractive. They have a much wider color range than chemical glitters, so you’ll need to think about the types of colors in your line.

You might be wondering whether it matters whether you’re buying or making your glitter.  If you’re interested in making glitter for resale purposes, then the answer is no. The manufacturer doesn’t care whether their glitter is used for resale or not; they will still make money either way.

2. Decide what kind of business you want

Resale

The most common means of making money on glitter is to buy it in bulk and then sell it for a profit. You know the glitter you buy at the craft store? Well, chances are you have friends who can make more of it, which makes it easy to make a profit. Another benefit is that the process of resale is relatively simple. 

Manufacture

On the other hand, if you decide to manufacture your own glitter, you have many more steps and business questions to figure out.  Do you want to sell the glitter wholesale? Retail? Online? Wholesale and retail? Glitter is a complex product that requires a lot of special investment and expertise. 

I prefer to sell glitter wholesale. It’s more profitable and less work than selling retail. 

Wholesale vs. Retail vs. Online

Prices vary depending on whether you sell glitter wholesale, sell it retail, or sell it online. The price difference is largely determined by the quantity you sell at a time, but it’s also affected by taxes and shipping costs.

3. Decide where to produce your glitter

In your home

The easiest way to start making glitter is to create your product in your home. You’ll need piles of glitter and other supplies all over the house, but the process will be easy: make a bunch of glitter in your kitchen and then sell it.

At a local business

If you want to save on costs (and who doesn’t?), you may wish to go to a local production facility (if one exists nearby). This is also easier because you can store your glitter for future sales. 

At a factory

More expensive factories are in China and India, but factories in other countries are more common as well.

One of the main factors to cost is labor.  Labor accounts for at least 50% of production costs, while materials barely account for 5%.

4. Decide how much glitter you want to make

If you sell wholesale, the quantity is limitless as far as the factory is concerned.

For retail, you need to think about whether you want to sell to stores or individuals. Stores will be easy because you can sell a lot at one time, but the glitter will be expensive. Individuals are harder because it takes more work to meet with customers and sell them a smaller quantity of glitter.

Decide on quantities for different types of sales:

Wholesale

If you sell wholesale, how much can you sell? It all depends on how much the factory can produce and your storage space (i.e. how much glitter you can purchase).

However, you can help the process by ordering inappropriate bulk sizes. For example, if you’re ordering glitter in 100 grams quantities, get 1000 grams instead. 

Retail

How much will a store typically buy? 100, 1000, or 10000 grams? Keep in mind that stores may want to order glitter more frequently than individuals. If you sell different quantities of glitter, you can make a better profit overall. 

Online

To sell to an online market, you’ll need to first decide how much glitter you want to sell at a time. If the quantity is small enough for the average person, then (s)he may be happy to resale your glitter online. If the quantity is large enough for shipping purposes, then selling online may make sense. It all depends on how much you make in each sale.

5. Decide where to sell your glitter

At a craft fair

If you have a friend who works at craft fairs, ask her for her contacts. This is the easiest and most common way to get your product into the market: get your product in front of an influential audience, and then sell more on the side.

Online

Selling on the internet is much more uncommon, but it has its benefits. Most importantly, you don’t need to sell via a friend–you can reach your own audience and make money at the same time. The downside is that you need to spend more time online and less time selling at craft fairs.

To sell online, you’ll need an online presence. If you’re in a foreign country without any contacts, then creating a website may be difficult and expensive. 

If you do have an online presence, you’ll need to decide whether selling online is right for you.

6. Decide on your pricing

Wholesale

The quantity you can sell is related to the price of your product. If you want to sell 500 grams of glitter for $20, then (s)he will buy it for $20 as well. The nice thing about selling wholesale is that if you don’t make enough money, you can always buy more from the factory.

Retail

The quantity of glitter you can sell at a time is also related to the price. However, if you sell 1000 grams of glitter for $30, then (s)he will not pay $30 for it. Remember that retail prices are much higher than wholesale prices. Instead, you can keep the price lower and make more money by selling more quantities.

Online

Online prices are much lower than retail prices, so you can sell more quantity for the same price. The key here is to make it easy for users to buy your product. If they don’t want to pay, then (s)he won’t buy.

7. Decide what your packaging should look like

Free-flowing glitter

This is the most common type of packaging because (s)he can sell as much as s/he wants using this packaging.

Bottles with pumps

This makes packaging a lot easier since you don’t have to measure out glitter for every customer. However, if you decide to sell bottles with pumps, you’ll need to cut down on the number of customers that want free-flowing glitter.

Bottles/jars

Many people prefer bottles and jars because they can just dump the glitter into whatever they’re making.

Glue in bags

This is popular particularly with scrapbooking and other crafts.

Individual pieces

if you sell glitter in bags of 100 or 500 grams, then (s)he can just pour it into their own jars.

8. Decide how you’re going to get paid

Once you’ve sold the product, you’ll need to distribute your earnings. If a factory handles your production costs, then you probably want to get paid after the product is made. This is less common with individual sales because (s)he usually sells the product before production begins.

Make sure you make enough money to cover your expenses. If the factory wants to be paid after production, this is usually interesting because the factory needs to produce the glitter before being paid.

If you want to be paid through individual sales, then (s)he will usually want a certain amount of money upfront with an agreement that s/he’ll pay once the product is sold.

How to Start a Paleta Business

Different Types of Glitter

Crushed glass

This is the most basic type of glitter. It is made from crushed pieces of glass (no longer than 2mm). Glass glitter will be available in many colors and comes in a variety of shapes including stars, hexagons, and squares. The most common shapes for glass glitter are stars, hexagons, and squares.

The color of this type of glitter is the determination of the size of the pieces of glass. Smaller pieces are darker and have different sparkles. Where size is concerned, larger pieces of glass are whiter in color and have less sparkle.

There is usually no core to this type of glitter, but if desired it can be added during production. For the most part, crushed glass glitter is sold in little jars or tubes that come in various colors.

Crushed plastic

This type of glitter is made by crushing pieces of plastic. These pieces can be anywhere from 1mm up to 2mm in size. The most common colors are red, green, and blue (the color usually corresponds to the type of material used), but there are other colors available as well.

The shapes that are available are stars, hexagons, and squares. The most common shapes for plastic glitter are stars and hexagons. For the most part, crushed plastic glitter is sold in little jars or tubes that come in various colors.

Metal Glitter

This type of glitter is made from metal filings and a resin binder. The color of this type of glitter differs depending on the type of metal used: silver, gold, or copper. Glitter made from silver is usually the most expensive and can be found in a variety of colors.

Gold glitter (also colored) is cheaper than silver, but generally has fewer colors available. Copper has many more colors available to it than gold but is also very pricey. For the most part, metal glitter is sold in little jars or tubes that come in various colors.

How to Start a Tumbler Business

How to Manufacture Glitter

• Collect plastic bottles for the container
• Get an edible glitter activated by washing with soap and water to remove any oils
• Add a fragrance to further scent your glitter
• Add glue to seal the bottles once full of sparkles
• Fill up each bottle with water or glycerin. If using glycerin, make sure to add distilled water as well. 

• Mix together the dry glitter powder and either citric acid or citric acid juice until it becomes solid. 

• Once solid, add the liquid and mix. 
• Add a fragrance at this time or later. 
• Once the mixture has clear and glittery, bottle it up and sell at craft fairs or on the internet.

How to Make Polyester Glitter

Polyester glitter comes in powder, but it doesn’t feel like glitter. It is actually made of tiny glass beads that are dyed the same color as the powder and then rolled into a tight cylinder. Several steps are needed for the production process, which involves an extruder and mixing machines.

This process requires a great deal of skill and training to ensure consistency in colors and quantities produced. If you want to succeed in selling glitter, you should first look into the production process and the market.

The main ingredient in polyester glitter is polypropylene resin, which is usually produced by a polymerization reaction between propylene oxide and ethylene glycol.

The resulting polyester can be treated with formaldehyde in order to make it more viscous, which means that it has less surface tension and makes it easier to pull out of a roll. The extruder produced in this process is needed to form a cylindrical shape.

This machine is usually used to prepare polyester fibers. The polypropylene resin is mixed with the glass beads, which makes it easier to roll into a cylinder during the process. After that, the mixture has to be compressed for grain volume and filament diameter, which allows for a smoother distribution of polypropylene resin within polyester fibers.

With all the steps considered, you may assume that the production process is complicated, but this is not necessarily the case. All you need is raw material, a machine, and people who know how to use it.

The main challenge here is to find a good supplier that will allow you to produce polyester glitter in quantities large enough for commercial use.

FAQ

Conclusion

Overall, making your own glitter is not a bad idea, but if you want to make a real money-making venture out of it you will need to have a serious commitment and be able to keep track of the project’s expenses.

Overall, however, the product is usually good and many people enjoy the process of making their own glitter for sale in small amounts or for personal use. If you do decide to make your own glitter, make sure you buy yourself some good materials and sell them for a reasonable profit.

Remember to keep track of your materials, equipment, and expenses as you go along with the project.