Why We Retired the Glitter Pit Stick

Nine Years of Trying: Why We’re Retiring the Glitter Pit Stick

Back in 2017, glitter was keeping me up at night.

Not because I wanted to stop using it. Because I couldn’t figure out how to keep using it responsibly. I wrote about it publicly in 2018, called it “The Great Glitter Dilemma,” and laid out exactly what was gnawing at me: glitter was popular, customers loved it, but conventional glitter is a microplastic. Fish and birds can’t digest it. It accumulates. The collective glitter on our planet was causing real problems, and I wasn’t willing to pretend otherwise.

So instead of dropping it, I went looking for a better answer.

I switched to eco-glitter sourced from the UK. At one point, I even tried making my own with flower petals. I sourced a cellulose-based BioGlitter® product from a small supplier called Wild Glitter, whose glitter had a number-one ingredient of cellulose instead of plastic. I was trying; I really was.

But the controversy never stopped. And eventually, the search led me somewhere I couldn’t ignore: there is no version of “just trust the label” that holds up to scrutiny. After nine years of trying to find a glitter I could fully stand behind, I’ve made the decision to retire the Glitter Pit Stick.

Here’s the full story.

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Why I went looking across the ocean for a natural deodorant ingredient

In 2018, I made the switch to eco-glitter from the UK because I wanted something better than conventional plastic glitter. Conventional cosmetic glitter is almost always PET plastic, made reflective with metallic layers like aluminum, and coated in additional synthetic materials. It is a primary microplastic. It does not break down, and ends up in waterways. That was never okay with me, which is why I spent years and real money sourcing an alternative.

The UK supplier felt like the right move. The EU has stricter cosmetics regulation than the U.S., and I believed that a European-sourced biodegradable glitter was the most responsible option I could offer.

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What I learned when I dug deeper

Wild Glitter, my original supplier, is no longer in business. When I started researching how to re-source responsibly, I ran into something I wasn’t prepared for: “biodegradable glitter” is a real category, but it is not a simple one, and “it came from Europe” is not, by itself, a complete answer.

The most credible current option for cosmetic glitter is cellulose-based, aluminum-free, and carries third-party freshwater biodegradability certification. The Bioglitter PURE family is the strongest documented example. It is genuinely better than PET plastic glitter. A 2024 study found that cellulose-based glitter caused no significant harm to soil invertebrates, while PET glitter reduced reproduction by about 61% in the same test. That is a real and meaningful difference.

But here is where it gets complicated. Not all glitter marketed as biodegradable is built that way. A 2025 study found that some commercial eco-glitters retained their shape after 96 days in water, far from the full breakdown the label implied. Some eco-glitters still use styrene/acrylate coatings. Some still contain aluminum powder. The phrase “biodegradable” can mean a lot of things. Without the exact INCI ingredient list, a current safety data sheet, and third-party certification documentation, you are essentially taking a supplier’s word for it.

Without Wild Glitter, I do not have a vetted source that meets the bar I hold everything else to. And I am not willing to use a glitter I cannot fully document.

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Nine years is a long time to try

Just to be clear about something: I am not retiring the Glitter Pit Stick because I stopped caring. Coming Up Rainbows is retiring it because I never stopped caring, and the more I learned, the harder it became to defend.

I found what I believed was the most responsible biodegradable option on the market, and held on for nine years. I genuinely believed the answer was out there. And maybe it still is, somewhere. But I cannot find a source I can fully document right now. And, I don’t feel good about making a product I cannot fully stand behind.

Coming Up Rainbows was built on one simple principle: if I cannot verify what is in it, it should not go in a product. That principle is exactly why the Glitter Pit Stick is going away.

The Regular Pit Stick, the Unscented Pit Stick, and the Sensitive Pit Stick are not going anywhere. They are as good as they have ever been. They will keep doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

Thank you for trusting us with your pits for all these years. That trust is the whole reason we make these calls.

xo, Erika