What is Depotting????  More importantly, WHY would you want to do it?

Depotting is the act of removing cosmetics "pans" from the cases they are sold in and putting them together in  a larger palette allowing for more convenience and easier access.  

I have often wondered if there was a better way to store my "many" eye shadow colors and blushes and keep the color families together without having to open a bunch of single compacts.  I consider myself a highly productive person and any time saving I can do while getting ready in the morning I am all for!  Also, I have so many compacts that I tend to "forget" about colors even though I really like them.  Having them all in one place?  Fantastic I say!

and I turned this:  

into this:

Well, the act of depotting is not so fantastic but well worth the effort.  It is like demolition and a science experiment all rolled into one.  Please remember safety first!!!  Wear safety goggles or glasses, burn gloves are great if you have access to them and use caution, products get hot and the glue gets hot too! 

You will need the following tools:

safety goggles or glasses

Nail polish remover

Rubbing alcohol

cotton pads(not balls)

cotton swabs

tweezers and/or tongs

the thinnest instrument you can find(many people use a knife, they are a little sharp for me so I have used a fine tip craft scissor and a nail implement I found at Sephora shaped like a f rounded rectangle at the end but it is very thin.)

old cookie sheets(one for cooking, one for cleaning the glue off the cooled off product)

Aluminum foil

Palette with magnet sheet(use a Z-palette or make your own with magnet sheets from the craft store)

Oven preheated to 350 degrees and ALLLLLL your windows open and fans on, cooked plastic is stinky and possible toxic so you don't want to take any chances!

I searched online and found many people use their flat irons to heat the compacts, too slow I say, you can only do one at a time.  Then I found this website:  http://floatingindreams.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-to-depot-eye-shadows-the-oven-method/  and decided to try it myself...

First, I gathered my compacts and avoided the single ones that were too well used.  I did use some that were part of a trio or quad that had one nearly empty one.  I pulled, pried and snapped off all the lids(this iswhere the goggles come in!) and some have a two-part bottom, I got those off as well.  I spread a layer of aluminum foil over an old cookie sheet(from my wedding circa 1992)  and laid the compact pieces across the sheet keeping at least an inch between them:

I put them in the oven for just 8 minutes and this is what happened:

I removed them form the oven and let them cool down for about 8 minutes, then I used tongs, tweezers and scissors to pop the loose ones out onto my cooling tray...some were just falling out, others, like the Sephora singles, needed to be gently eased out by sliding your thin instrument in between the metal pan side and the compact side.  I looked for the biggest gap possible and slid the instrument down as far as I could to where I could angle it under the pan and it would just "pop" out.  If you are too rough, you can crack the make-up and destroy it.  I had an empty lip gloss pot that I put one of my few failures in:

I only ended up ruining 3 shadows that were not salvageable.

This is my "aftermath":

A few of the compacts needed more cooking so I put them in for five more minutes and that was perfect.  I left my oven open all day after I turned it off to air out the stinky plastic.  Let them cool down!!!

After cool down is the hard part, you have to remove the glue, YUK!!!  Some people use the rubbing alcohol, I liked the nail polish remover and found they worked differently depending on the glue that was used.  On some, I have to used the nail polish remover first then "finished them" with the rubbing alcohol.  I used the cotton pads because the smooth side didn't leave a bunch of cotton sticking out like a cotton ball would.  I used cotton swabs for the smaller pans.  Once all the glue is removed and the bottoms of your pans are shiny and clean the fun begins!  You can organize by brand, color or put your favorite colors together-use your imagination!  I had on Z-palette and also made one of my own using some fun scrap-booking paper:

So fun!  I figure this will save me at least 3 minutes every morning, 15 minutes a week and 780 extra minutes of sleep a year!  WELL worth it...and much more organized too!

Until next time, stay beautiful!
Melissa