By: Jessica Oden
If you're like me, you know that no festival outfit is complete without glitter. Whether you want to shimmer just a little or sparkle like a disco ball, these glitter hacks will give your outfits new life.
Where to get it:
This may seem self explanatory, and if you're a seasoned glitter expert skip to the next section. But for the rest of you, my top two favorite places to get my glitter fix is a craft store, Target, or Freedom Rave Wear. I find that generally craft stores have a better selection of finer glitter, while Target tends to have a better selection of chunkier glitter. Of course if you're looking for a one stop shop for all your festival attire needs, Freedom Rave Wear sells glitter as well that you can drop into your cart with the rest of your goodies. However, with these containers being on the smaller end, they usually work best when you want to exclusively use it on your face or in your hair. For someone like me that likes to put it literally everywhere, I usually end up getting a couple of different colors of chunky glitter, mix it with a similar colored finer glitter, that way I have a seemingly unending supply of glitter mix to bathe myself in. Etsy also has a huge selection of glitter mixes to pick from, most of which are also biodegradable (we love a clean planet).
How to get it to actually stay put:
On your skin-
Honestly one of my favorite things to find post-festival are pieces of glitter on my arms from strangers I stood next to. But while post festival glitter stragglers are fun, everyone knows how frustrating it is to hop off the shuttle and find that most of your glitter fell off before you even got through the gates. I’ve tried lots of different DIY hacks online, but as anyone with a Pinterest knows, not all DIY projects are created equal. It wasn't until last summer that I finally found a method that worked, and it's actually so simple it hurts. Just snag a bottle of aloe vera from any drug store, mix in your glitter mix of choice and slather yourself in as much glitter as you want/can handle. When I'm in a rush sometimes I'll just put the aloe vera right on my skin and rub the glitter on afterward, but that tends to make it look pretty patchy and makes way more of a mess, but sometimes a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do. Pro-tip: make sure you give yourself plenty of time to put on sunscreen and let it set in before putting the glitter/aloe vera on. Nobody wants a chunky glitter tan line that makes them look like a connect-the-dot gone wrong.
In your hair-
Really the secret here is texture spray/dry shampoo and hairspray. I like to put it in the hairline of whatever hairstyle I'm doing that day, but you can really put it wherever you like. There are also tons of different kinds of hairspray with glitter already in it, but I tend to find that these products make my hair too crunchy and are really limited to fine glitter in one color.
On your face-
There are a ton of different glitter adhesive products available that work very nicely for getting it to stick to your face. It really comes down to personal preference and how much control you’re looking for in application. Products that are more liquid will tend to smear and drip more than one that is more of a gel consistency. But on the other end, liquid adhesive tends to dry and leave a thin layer of glitter, while gel adhesive tends to stay a little tacky while leaving a thicker layer of glitter. It really depends on your personal preference and what look you’re going for. Maybe try both and see what works best for you! Once you apply the glitter adhesive on the desired areas of your face, gently apply scoops of glitter to the adhesive with an old eye-shadow brush.
On your butt-
In case you were wondering, yes, I am aware that a butt is still skin, but I think that getting glitter to stick to your butt from the time you frantically apply it last minute at the hotel to when you’re frolicking inside the festival gates is a unique issue that requires unique solutions. I start out with the same initial sticking method (aloe vera+glitter) and then make sure that I have some kind of barrier between my butt and the inevitable school or charter bus seat. Whether that is a pair of shorts, a flowy skirt, or just a pashmina tied around my waist depends on my outfit and the weather! The real key is not wiggling around in your seat too much, which I recognize is quite the task given the lack of seatbelts and day drinking that will inevitably occur, but we’re talking ideal situations here.
At the end of the day we all know it’s not about how we look, it’s about making memories with the people we love and sharing in an amazing experience that grounds us and makes us feel like a significant part of the universe. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t look good (and sparkly) while doing it.