Depotting is quite relaxing I have to say! You need to be very patient, which I was not in the beginning... however the more patient you are, the less breakages you have. Learnt the hard way!
Casualties
I've found that some brands of eyeshadow are rather fragile - MAC & Clarins in my case.
A top layer of my MAC Orange lifted off, MAC rule broke in about 3 pieces so I broke it up a little more before putting it into a sample jar.
The Clarins Eye Colour Trio lived up to it's name & broke in a trio. Unfortunately I threw out the packaging so I've forgotten the name. I hope to remember it one day! Hopefully I'll come a cross it online.
These were some of the first depots so it was probably a mixture of the fragility plus my impatience.
The chance of breakage depends on.
- How fragile the eyeshadow is
- How you treat it (ie, forcing it out)
- The amount & quality of glue used
The Methods I Tried
The Candle Method: I found this method quite easy however the fumes that came off the melting plastic really noxious. It gave me a headache as well as making me light headed!
The Alcohol Method: I found that this did not work for me, the pans did not lift out. Perhaps the alcohol did not penetrate below the pan or I didn't use enough?
The Hairdryer Method: This was by far the easiest & fastest way for me & it's the method I stuck to. The hairdryer melted the glue really well & let me lift out the pan easily.
So, the Hairdryer Method was the most successful way for me, but that did not stop the casualties. :(
A few things you need to watch out for:
- Digging your nails or your depotting tool into the eyeshadow (so easy!)
- Dropping the eyeshadow
- Having the eyeshadow "fling" out
- Don't forget the name of the shadow! Write it on the back of the pan (or keep the product sticker on it).
So, all in all it's going well! I've taken off the labels & put them on the back of the eyeshadows. In the case of the MAC pans I haven't stuck them down all the way as I know I'll need to get magnets for these.
I think I might stop depotting for the moment as I don't want to depot all my shadows to have them not fit in the new palettes or put them back into their original packaging.
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