Depotting My Shadows Part I

Today is Part I of my depotting experience. For those of you who don't know, depotting is when you take the makeup/eye shadow out of it's compact and place into a palette (those three MAC palettes above). This frees up a lot of space with your makeup, no more bulky packaging! (And sometimes, sadly, no more pretty packaging). It also allows you to view all your shadows at once! Now they all can get some love!

At first, I was like no way, nope. I like my makeup all pretty in the containers I bought them in. But then I read this blog post by Emma over at Manicurity and I thought about it some more. And the more I thought about it, the more the idea grew on me. I have these large Sephora palettes that I never use because they are so big and not kept in my case with my other shadows. And I hate digging through my case and opening palettes to find the one I need. 

So after talking with Emma and figuring things out I decided to take the plunge and buy three MAC Cosmetics Pro Palette Large Duo. They are only $8! They are sturdy and have a plastic lid inside so you can use both sides!

As I was waiting for the palettes to arrive (they were on back order! Grrr!) I researched the many ways to depot shadows. I ended up using 4 different ways in my experience.

Here's part of my setup. I used a lap desk with wash clothes to protect it. There is my itty bitty straightener (hey, I have really short hair!) I have rubbing alcohol (which I put in a China Glaze shot glass and put it in the cup holder of the desk). I have the q-tips and sharp instruments and foil all ready and waiting to get started.

See, even though it's tiny it still works! But I can only heat up one thing at a time. But that's alright. I have the foil to protect my straightener. I let it set on there for a bit so that the glue melts. I used these older Maybelline shadows that I love but haven't used in awhile first, just in case I totally screwed this up! :)

Here's the mess it makes. Look at those yucky glue things! They totally look like earwax! Yuck! You can see the glue still stuck on a few shadows. I would then swab them with rubbing alcohol and scrap off the glue using orange sticks as well as old cuticle scrapper that I don't use.

Once it's all clean I stick a self-adhesive magnet on the back with the name of the shadow.

Just a quick shot to show you how much less room the shadows now take up! Fabulous! And that plastic lid that the old containers are on can be lifted to put more shadows on that side!

You can also use a scrapbooking circle punch for you circle shadows, like you Sephora Monos or Urban Decays. :)

Ok, so I ran into a problem. I did a ton of depotting and had them all magnetized and stickered but they kept falling out. What! This sucks! Why did I do this? Now my shadows are wrecked! But it was my magnets that were the issue. I bought the cheap stuff from Walmart. Boo! I went to Michaels and used a coupon to get these Aleene's Magnetic Sheets. And they are so so much better! Phew! Shadows saved!

Stay tuned for Part II on Wednesday where I show you a few tricks and some completed palettes!

Interested in depotting? Check out these links
Manicurity: Adventures in Depotting

Petrilude: Depotting Powders & Creams

BunBun Makeup Tips: Depotting Tutorial

The Painted Mask: Tutorial: Depotting eyeshadows in unusual packaging

GossMakeupArtist: Depot Your Eyeshadows in Seconds

and search it out on youtube, there are a ton of videos!