It's peak festival season, the fields are calling, and glitter is having its loudest summer in years. But if the thought of pastel star stickers and unicorn shimmer makes you want to hiss into your coffin — good news, coven. Glitter belongs to us too. 🦇 Done right, dark festival glitter looks less like a kids' party and more like a fallen star crash-landed on your cheekbone. Here's how to sparkle your way through summer without giving up a single drop of gothic drama.
Everything we're reaching for today is 100% vegan and cruelty-free, because looking wicked should never come at anyone else's expense.
Step 1: Build a moody, smoked-out base
Glitter needs a dark canvas to glow against — throw sparkle onto bare skin and it just looks like you rolled through a craft shop. Start by smoking out your socket and lower lash line with something deep and dramatic. Our Smokeshow Palette is built for exactly this: inky blacks, smoky greys and enough pigment to survive a mosh pit. Want a hit of blood and bruise underneath your sparkle? The Til Death Palette and the fiery Hellish Palette bring oxblood, ember and burgundy tones that make glitter read gothic rather than girly. Blur the edges with a fluffy brush — we want 'ancient and undead', not 'cut crease'.
Browse the full range over on the eyeshadow collection and pick your poison.
Step 2: Lock it down (this is the bit everyone skips)
Here's the secret that separates a look that lasts three songs from one that lasts three days: glitter glue. Loose glitter fluttering onto plain shadow will migrate down your face the moment you start dancing. A dab of our Glitter Fix Gel pressed exactly where you want the sparkle acts like a magnet — it grabs the glitter and refuses to let go, through sweat, tears and the crush of the barrier.
Tap it on with a fingertip, wait a few seconds until it turns tacky, then press your glitter straight on top. Pressing — never sweeping — is the golden rule. Sweep and you'll fling sparkle into your carefully smoked shadow and undo all that lovely darkness.
Step 3: Choose gothic (and neon) glitter placement
Placement is everything if you want witchy rather than whimsical. Skip the all-over lids and go for something more deliberate: a sharp glitter cut through the centre of a black smoky eye, a scattering under the lower lash line like tears of stardust, or a single dramatic streak down the temple. Keep your base colours in the dark family — gunmetal, deep silver, blood red, oil-slick black — and let the darkness do the heavy lifting while the glitter just winks.
Want your look to come alive after dark? Drop in a few electric accents from our Cyberpunk Palette — acid greens, hot pinks and UV-bright blues that glow like neon signs under festival blacklight. A flick of neon in the inner corner or along a glitter line turns a moody gothic eye into full after-hours, glow-in-the-dark drama.
Step 4: Add an otherworldly glow
A whisper of highlighter on the high points ties the whole look together and makes your skin look lit from within — perfect for golden-hour photos in a muddy field. Our Moonchild Highlighter Palette is pure moonlit magic: a range of ethereal, otherworldly shimmers you can sweep along the cheekbones, brow bone and cupid's bow for that touched-by-the-moon glow. Find more glow-getters in the highlighter collection.
Step 5: Go for a black sparkly vampire lip
Here's where we take the glitter trick from your eyes down to your mouth. Start with a base of our jet-black Demise Air Matte Liquid Lipstick — a proper pitch-black matte that's the ultimate gothic pout on its own. Let it set, then dab a tiny bit of Glitter Fix Gel onto the centre of the lips and press a fine silver or gunmetal glitter straight on top. The result? A black sparkly lip that looks like crushed stars over midnight — pure witchy festival drama.
Not in a blackout mood? Our SANGUIS Electric Lip Gloss is a glossy blood-red that looks incredible under festival lights, while VAMPYRE leans deeper and darker for full vampire-queen energy. Prefer a smoky grey instead? Reach for Grave Digger Air Matte Liquid Lipstick. Dig through the whole lips collection to find your festival mouth.
Step 6: Seal it with a mosh-proof lock
Now the most important step for surviving a weekend in the pit: lock the whole lot down. A generous mist of our Mosh Proof Setting Spray welds your glitter, shadow, neon and glow into place so it stays put through sweat, crowd-surfing and questionable weather. It's the difference between waking up in your tent still looking like a gothic goddess and finding your smoky eye halfway down your neck. Close your eyes, mist in an X and a T across the face, and let it set.
Make it last all weekend
A few final survival tips from the pit: press powder over your base before glitter so everything grips, carry a tiny pot of Glitter Fix Gel for touch-ups, and don't fight the melt — a little smudge by the third band only makes a gothic look better. Add a pair of dramatic lashes from the lashes collection and you're ready to haunt the main stage.
Festival glitter doesn't have to mean giving up your dark heart. Layer it over shadow, lock it down, keep the palette moody with a neon wink and a black sparkly lip, and you'll shine like something that only comes out after midnight. Go be the beautiful creature in the crowd everyone can't stop staring at. 🌙🤘