Not all Bengal cats have a glitter coat. The ones that do have a softened hair texture and an iridescent sheen to their coat. They look as if they have been sprinkled with golden dust that gives them a shimmering and sparling effect to their coat. Any of the Bengal colours can be glittered.

However, because this is a recessive gene, a Bengal kitten must have two copies of the glitter gene to have a glitter coat, one from each parent. This also means that a glittered Bengal kitten can come from two non glittered parent, as long as the kitten inherits one glitter gene from each parent. Although more research is needed, there is some belief that the glitter gene may also be accumulative. Thus, if you breed two glittered Bengals, their offspring may be even more glittered.

The glitter gene is not inherited from the Asian Leopard Cat. It can be traced back to India, to one of the founding cats of the Bengal breed, Millwood Troy of Delhi. Troy was a domestic male cat, with a golden colour and green eyes. Jean Mill imported Troy into the United States in the early 1980s as he had many traits that she required in the Bengal breed, such as a rich colour, a muscular body, strong boning and a healthy bloodline. The difficulty for breeders has been to keep the wild type and structure the Bengal cat should have, whilst still breeding for a glittered coat and this needs to be done through selective breeding. The advantage of the glittered coat does seems to be in the pelt of the Bengal and we have certainly noticed that the glittered coat is often combined with a tight, short and luxurious pelt.