Depotting MAC Eyeshadows

HEY BABES!

So today I wanted to talk to you about depotting your eyeshadow’s into palettes. I don’t know about you but when I’m applying makeup on myself or one of my clients the last thing I want to be doing is rooting around in my kit trying to find whatever shadow I’m after – it wastes time and makes me look unprofessional. A lot of people I know use heat to depot their shadows – however if you’re a complete clutz like moi, then you will probably end up burning yourself – so here is how I do it WITHOUT heat…

Before we start here is a list of the tools you will need to achieve this:

~ TOOLS ~

• Eyeshadow/s
• Magnets (sticker magnets) I bought mine off ebay because I’m lazy haha. I just typed in “round self adhesive magnets” and it gave me a whole bunch of options for a really reasonable price.
• Wire cutter
• Pairing knife
• Small plastic dish
• Rubbing alcohol
• Sticker dots – for the labels of your eyeshadows and you can buy these from Officeworks or office supplies store. However, I couldn’t be bothered with that as I don’t depot eyeshadows enough to warrant buying a whole pack of these so I made my own template. If you would like a copy of this template… please email me on krystlegallaway@optusnet.com.au and I can send you a copy.
• An old towel and some rags
• Palettes

So let’s get started and turn this

into this

~ STEP 1 ~

Depending on the size and type of your palette I usually like to sort out the order in which the eyeshadows are going to go into the palette and then write down all the names of them on a piece of paper so you don’t forget what they are called later on. Once this has been done I take the eyeshadow together with my pairing knife and as you can see from the picture below I take the tip of the knife and place it between the opening (where it actually locks the cover shut) and we are going to pry it open. Use gentle twisting motions as it doesn’t take much to pop the top of the shadow out. Once you have done this put the shell of the shadow to one side as you will want to keep and collect these for the Back to MAC program.

~ STEP 2 ~

Once you have  removed the shadow, you will need to take your wire cutters and again gently and carefully (so as to avoid damaging the eyeshadow) refer back to the original lip we were working on earlier to pop the shadow out. Place your wire cutters on the lip and gently and slowly pry back the plastic (as per the first and second pictures below). Once you’ve removed some of the plastic – you will need to take your pairing knife, dip it into the rubbing alcohol and carefully drop some in by sliding the knife between the plastic container and the actual eyeshadow pan (as per the third picture below). I would do this as many times as it takes till you can get your pairing knife in between the pan and the plastic and easily remove the pan completely.

~ STEP 3 ~

Once you’ve removed your shadow the pan itself will it will still have glue on the back of it (see pictures 1 & 2 below). So take your rag or old towel and dip it into the rubbing alcohol and gently clean in small circular motions untill all the glue is removed (see picture 3 below).

~ STEP 4 ~

After the pan is cleaned and there is no residual glue left – take your sticker magnet , peel off the back and stick the magnet in the middle of the pan. From here you can either place on your sticker dots (if you bought them) on or you can just place the shadow straight in your palette (see below).

~ DONT FORGET ~

To collect your empty containers and utilize the Back to MAC program. 

Hopefully you found this somewhat useful and if you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to ask or let me know 🙂

Till next time

xoxo