How is Glitter Made?

GLITTER FILM
The glitter that we sell is made from two different types of film. The Craft Glitter is made from PVC film and the Polyester Glitter is made from PET films. The iridescent line combines both PET and acrylic together.

The metallic glitters are made from film that is a single solid color.

The holographic glitter is made from film that already has the holographic quality. The same goes for iridescent. The films are colored and treated before they are cut.

THE CUTTING
There are different types and sizes of machines that are used for cutting glitter. Most machines have blades that cut the glitter into either hex shape pieces or square shape pieces depending on how the film is fed into it. Other machines die-cut shapes from the film. With some machines, the hex shape flakes are fed in at an angle and square flakes are fed straight in. Different blade configurations are used based on the size of the flake.

There are different technologies used by different companies of course.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIGH QUALITY GLITTER AND JUNK GLITTER
This is an endless topic as there are so many differences between really good glitter and really bad glitter. First the film matters a whole lot. High-quality film is going to give you great glitter.... or is it?

You can take great film and run it through a badly set up machine and you will not get a clean cut. If you take a look at cheap glitter, you will not only see that the flakes are not uniform in shape, but you will see little flecks of film that should not be there at all.

A lot of bad glitters come from outside the US where they use cheap film and operate machines that are not well set up or have poor blades. Glitter from other countries are also a wild card- is it really non-toxic or are they just saying so? Truth in advertising is not the same around the world as it is here in the USA.

Finally, there are coatings on films. For example, if you buy a cheap metallic polyester glitter it probably does not have a high quality Polyurethane coating. This may not matter too much if you are using it for simple crafts. However, it matters a lot if you are using it for floors, boats and in solvents!

CPG has chosen to stock and sell glitter film that is made in the USA. We feel it is important that we know that the materials and practices involved in making glitter are controlled by USA laws. After all, our customers are handling it, wearing it and living with it. We also feel it is important to keep jobs here and not send them overseas as much as possible.