I am always looking for ways to improve my Pro Kit especially when it comes to organization. I will definitely give you a tour of my kit so you can see what's all in it along with some of my favorite products that I take with me when I am on location.
I've always wanted to make a lipstick palette with magnetizable pans to condense my lipsticks since it's so hard to carry 30+ lipsticks with you. I had some extra empty eye shadow pans that I use to press loose pigments so I decided to melt all my popular bridal lipsticks down into the pans and then placing them in see-thru palettes (very similar to the Z-palettes) that I have been making (more about this later in a later post).
Materials you will need
- lipsticks - any brand, texture or finish will work
- empty aluminum or tin pans - Personally I like to use tin because you don't need a magnet if you are using a magnetized palette. I get all my pans at TKB TRADING you can get the traditional 26mm circle pan or other sizes and shapes they offer.
- palette knife
- labels - you can cut labels to fit the bottom of your pan or purchase pre sized labels
- hair straightener - I purchased a cheap hair straightener just to use for projects such as eye shadow depotting and for melting.
- empty eye shadow palettes - many brands carry empty palettes from ELF to MAC which has dividers or Z-Palette. I make my own, it's so fun to make!
First take your lipstick and cut about 1/4 -1/2 of the stick to melt. A palette knife or even a regular butter knife
would work as well. The color that is shown is Wet N Wild Matte Lipstick 901B. Swatches of my Wet N Wild Matte Lipsticks coming soon!
Now smash the lipstick until you fill up the whole pan. The palette knife helps smash and spread the product nicely.
Place your pan on your hair straightener and watch it melt to a liquid constancy. I keep the heat level on the lowest setting. If you straightener does not give you option to change the heat levels just watch it carefully so it does not burn. The pan will not harm your hair straightener just wipe it down before you use it on your hair.
Naturally, you will see bubbles appearing, do not worry this is easy to solve. Just take something sharp and pop them. Or move the bubbles to side and scoop them away.
Once you feel the lipstick has melted, carefully remove the pan from the straightener. The lipsticks is in liquid form, try to have a steady hand when doing this. It is also very hot! Pretend the lipstick is a pizza and you are taking it out of the brick oven! A steady hand will do the trick. You see there's a air bubble that I couldn't remove, once I took the pan away from the heat source it went away. I spilled a little too. lol
While you are waiting for your lipstick pan to dry, prepare your label. Just found these labels at Office Depot. You can even use a label maker such as a P-Touch, whatever you can find around the house will do.
Once the pan solidifies just add your label to the bottom. Yay! You just created your own lipstick pan. Be creative and create your own custom colors. No more loose lipstick cases everywhere.
It's an addicting process, you literally want to melt down all your lipsticks you have into pans. I have a ton of lipsticks but I really just wanted to have a set with all my bridal colors that I use regularly.
The completed project. I know a lot of you are going to ask how I made the knock off Zpalette.. I will save this for a later post. :)
Have fun melting away!!!
