This past summer while working in my Glitter Glamper booth at the MN State Fair, I found myself not particularly loving my yellow, pink, and sometimes orange in glitter tattoos. The problem was that the kids saw my super bright looking “hot pink” glitter in my kit and always chose it, but it just didn’t come across as bright on the skin. I mean, you know how it goes…the kids still LOVE them, but we as artists are always our own worst critics, and we want our work to really pop. While it does depend a lot on the skin tone that they are being applied to, generally bright, bold and opaque colors just tend to show up better on glitter tattoos. Here are a few from the fair that showed my pink, yellow and orange woes…

I found that I was not the only one in my booth having this struggle! But the awesome thing about working alongside so many painty friends is that you can learn from each other, share and test out other brands, and get better!

Well, now that the fair is over, I thought I would do a little experimenting with some different shades and brands of yellows, oranges and pinks…the three colors that seemed to disappoint me most! I should note, I am sharing this information simply to help my fellow artists. I don’t even sell most of these glitters in my shop yet…so it’s not a sales pitch and nobody paid me to do this. 😉 I tend to stock my whole store based on my own experiences and recommendations from painty friends, so I’ll likely be adding more of these down the road as I test them and fall in love with some!

Anyway, here are some photos of swatches on my own arm, along with some gif’s to show the sparkle factor!

Pink Glitters

I had the most shades of pink to test! The one I currently have in my kit is Amerikan Body Art’s Bubblegum Pink. It’s one that looks super bright, but when used as a glitter tattoo, isn’t quite so much. I do still LOVE this pink, and it is my go-to pink for face painting. It does tend to be a little bit more transparent which is why I think it doesn’t pop as much on plain skin. Over pink face paint though, it’s awesome and it’s sheer-ness means it won’t totally cover up my work but enhances it.

For glitter tattoos, however, I think the UV and Neon shades seemed to show the most contrast against the skin. So, if you’re going for that as your goal, I’d recommend the UV and Neon options. I’ve included some other shades of pink too, because you don’t always necessarily want the UV look, and there are applications for both. I also think that the non-neon versions do have more sparkle in the light!

Yellow Glitters

Same goes for the yellows, and the oranges below for that matter. The UV/Neon versions seem to be a lot more opaque and bold, though the more sheer, iridescent colors have more sparkle to them. I had been using Amerikan Body Art’s Lemon Zest…much like the bubblegum pink, I still think it’s the best for face painting, where the neon/uv versions are more bold and high contrast for glitter tattoos. The powders are less glittery, but I thought were worth a try in this comparison!

Orange Glitters

Electric Orange is my fave for face painting, again, though the UV/Neon options seem more opaque. I do like Amerikan Body Art’s Tangerine glitter too, for a darker orange!

Summary…

This is by NO MEANS an exhaustive sampling of these colors. I chose some from my existing vendors, some that looked good to me online, some that I found my fellow artists using, and some that I already had on hand. But what I’ve learned is that the more holographic glitters are best when poofed over face paint of a similar color, though the UV/Neon versions seem to be more bold and opaque when applied directly over bare skin, as we do for glitter tattoos. Neon glitters and powders are bolder, though the non-neon ones tend to have more sparkle.

Do with this information whatever you wish! For me, this has pretty much just made my kit grow, haha! I love both the more iridescent and the more opaque glitters and will keep both in my kit…just as I have both glycerine based and wax based blacks and whites in my face paint kit! They both have their ideal application.

Do you have a favorite shade of yellow, orange or pink that isn’t listed here? I’d LOVE to hear about it!!

Post it in the comments! I really prefer my blog posts to be living documents where we can all share ideas and new things as new things come along. We all know there’s a new product practically every week in our world, ha! Your comments help keep these posts relevant, so please feel free to share! Challenge my opinions and post your own! Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope this post has helped you in your own quest for the perfect glitter for your application!