Makeup Tip #36 - De-potting Lipsticks and Ben Nye products

I fell in love with my Zpalettes when I ordered them just over a year ago.  (If you wonder what a Zpalette is, click here).  These magnetic palettes allowed me to organize and sort a variety of powders, eye shadows and cheek colors.

A few weeks ago I finally decided it was time to reduce the number of lipstick tubes and other makeup containers I carry in my makeup kit by de-potting them.

I had 27 tubes of lipstick in one drawer in my makeup kit.  

In about an hour and a half, I was able to consolidate those 27 tubes of lipstick into 1 Zpalette, which saves quite a bit of space!  I also find it is MUCH easier to get the lipstick onto the lip brush for my clients when the lipstick is in a pan and not in a tube.

The drawer that used to contain 27 lipsticks, now holds 3 Zpalettes filled !

I always assumed that de-potting lipstick would be a messier process than de-potting eyeshadows and cheek colors, but after a day of de-potting, I discovered that the powders are messier - especially if they start to break out of the pan.

While you can find many tutorials teaching you how to de-pot all types of makeup products on the Zpalette blog and on the web, I didn't find any tutorials explaining how to de-pot the 19 Ben Nye products I had, so I am attaching pictures below. 

After several trials and errors in de-potting, I discovered "the sweet spot" on the Ben Nye container.  As you can see in the picture below, I found that is was easier to pry off the plastic when inserting a knife into the side of the product packaging.  

There is a small gap in the front and back of the Ben Nye container, but every time I attempted to use the knife to pry off the plastic in those locations, the shadows broke.  When I put the knife in the side of the container, the plastic surround came out rather easily and the product stayed in tact!

Once this outer layer of plastic was removed, I followed Zpalette's flat iron tip (click here to see instructions) to melt the glue to isolate the metal pan.

After I did this for each eyeshadow and cheek color, I was left with all of these empty containers.

AND my newly filled Zpalettes looked like this:

If you have any makeup in loose metal pans (also known as refill pans), those pans should easily adhere to the magnetized Zpalette bottom.  In some cases, the metal will not stick, but never fear!  Every Zpalette I have ordered comes with a package of metal stickers that can be applied to the makeup pan, allowing any makeup pan to fit inside your Zpalette.