Makeup craft: pressing your own eyeshadow!

I've been interested in pressing my own makeup since the summer, but didn't try it until early November, when I made the first palette. I made the second palette a month later.

One of the things that put me off originally was the high cost - a 15-well palette with tins is about 8 bucks at Coastal Scents, and I wanted to press more than that.

So, I decided to improvise. I bought two 12-shadow palettes at the dollar store, scooped out the product, cleaned them with rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs, and had palettes for cheap! Since I was pressing directly into the palette, they didn't turn out as pretty as they might have had I had the pans out of the palette.

I used Fyrinnae's Powder Modifier and rubbing alcohol for this project. Each tin holds half a 5g jar worth of product - I mixed directly in the jar with a toothpick, or the little plastic scoops from TKB trading. Each jar took about 8 drops of Powder Modifier and 10+ of alcohol. I find it easier to make a soupy mess the consistency of Oobleck than to press crumbles. I pour the eyeshadow Oobleck into the tin, smooth out, come back a couple hours later, press with a piece of cardboard cut to the size of the tin and wrapped in plastic wrap, then press with a cotton pad to absorb some of the extra alcohol and leave the pattern. No pics of the process, my hands were all dirty! You might want to wear gloves.

Note: this works well for shimmer and pearl shadows, not so hot for mattes.
Also note: I pressed some micas from TKB trading into a sample jar (green and blue jar in one of the pics from my collection post), and got a crumbly semi-solid mess. Pressing a Pure Luxe shadow gave me similar results. Pressing a bit and seeing how it acts is a good way to find out if your product is a finished shadow or straight mica.

Here's the palette as purchased from the store - I would never wear this stuff, it was too stinky! (I hate synthetic fragrance in my makeup)


Here's the first palette I did - names of colors written on plastic cover sheet.


Here are the swatches, over ELF mineral primer:


Here's the second palette: Top row - EDM Samba Lessons, mix of TKB trading Libra Blues mica and EDM Aussie, lighter mix of the same, mix of EDM Flannel PJs and TKB trading Libra Blues. Middle row: EDM Volcano Blossom, darker mix of Volcano Blossom and Aussie, lighter mix of Volcano Blossom and Aussie, mix of Aussie and EDM Champagne. Bottom row: Mix of Volcano Blossom and Libra Blues, Mix of Pure Luxe Chocolate Grapes and Chocolate Blueberries (note crumbliness), mix of Flannel PJs, EDM Walkee Talkee, and EDM Movie Night, mix of Walkee Talkee and Movie Night.


Swatches! (over ELF mineral primer, as always)


And for size comparison purposes, a pic of one of the palettes next to a 25 g jar from EDM.