Glitter Girl: 10-year-old Sophia Rizzo the brains behind Gold Coast’s top glitter company

Gold Coast girl Sophia Rizzo’s booming glitter business has full-time staff, ambassadors in the US and Britain and is considering signing a deal with a leading music festival. How did she do it?

10-year-old Sophia Rizzo is the mind behind local cosmetics company, Glitter Girl. Photo by Richard Gosling

SOPHIA Rizzo’s booming glitter business has full-time staff, ambassadors in the US and Britain and is considering signing a deal with a leading music festival.

And it is not even her main job. That is school.

In less than 24 months, 10-year-old Sophia has turned Glitter Girl into a lucrative brand selling dozens of orders every week.

Sophia said the idea for the business came to her during a holiday in Hawaii.

“I like unicorns and glitter, and I wanted to share it with my friends,” she said.

“I wanted everyone to have glitter.”

Sophia Rizzo is the Gold Coast’s resident ‘Glitter Girl’, with a customer base that now stretches around the world. Photo: Supplied

Her mother, Megan Rizzo, said though the financial acumen was naturally tougher for Sophia to manage, she’s always had a head for business.

“She came home one day after seeing kids selling slime at school and she said, ‘oh, I could sell glitter’,” Ms Rizzo said.

“So she took all the orders and made it up, put everyone’s name on it and took it all in to school. You had 30 kids all using this glitter.

“The teacher asked where they’d gotten the glitter and she got in trouble. The kids had to give back their glitter.”

Sophia started out selling glitter in the classroom, but it’s now grown to a major business. Photo by Richard Gosling

The business has grown to the extent that Ms Rizzo has given up her job as a full-time photographer and husband Adam now only works part time as a property developer.

Glitter Girl, already boasting ambassadors in London and Texas, is now looking to hire more staff after being approached by music festival Splendour in the Grass for a collaboration.

Some of Glitter Girl’s products, hand designed and chosen by their ten-year-old founder. Photo: Supplied

Glitter Girl boasts 83 different glitters, each designed and hand-picked by Sophia, who confirmed she does have favourites.

“I like the pink and the holographic. I like it because it changes colour,” she said.

The biodegradable and vegan glitter is mixed and packaged in their warehouse at Burleigh, with some mixes having as many as four different sizes of glitter.

And despite their growing international market, Ms Rizzo said the company did not plan relocating.

“We’re a family Australian business, so we just want to focus on Australia and see where it goes,” she said.