Beauty Trick: How To Rescue Broken Eyeshadows/Blushes

1. Crush it up further.

2. Mix it with rubbing alcohol to a paste-like consistency.

3. Wait for it to be dry enough for pressing. Put tissue over it to absorb excess moisture & then press down (I used my palms). If the product clings on to tissue in a soggy mess, it's still too wet. I could only find 70% alcohol so I had to wait about an hour before it's dry enough. The higher the alcohol percentage, the faster it'll dry.

4. Leave overnight to fully dry.

Here's how my eyeshadows look right after pressing

Here's how they look fully dry

Tips & Tricks:

• Have colours you regret buying? Crush up several colours together to create a whole new product!

• Alcohol does weird things to shimmer. The two eyeshadows above are relatively shimmery, but had no traces of silver shimmer at all. Both had really shimmery silver glitter pop out after drying (but colour wise, I don't really see the silver shimmer)

• Sanitize your tools with the rubbing alcohol. I just saw a picture where a someone ended up with mold on her eyeshadows. Not pretty.

• Have loose powder eyeshadows? Mix them with a bit of TKB Trading's pressing binder/glycerin/oil* (the right amount should give you the consistency of wet sand you can use to build a sandcastle), then add the alcohol and press as usual. Loose powder eyeshadows usually don't have the binders pressed powders do, so they need the glycerin/oil* to help them stick together. Just remember that the entire process may cause the colours to morph. I normally like loose powder eyeshadows from indie brands because they have so much depth and dimension. While most colours press just fine, I find some colours lose their complexity after pressing. 

• For loose powder shadows with glitter, the glitter tends to sink to the bottom so press in layers (as in press one thin layer, wait until it solidifies, add another thin layer, wait, repeat).

* For the oil, I prefer using jojoba oil, but others have tried other combinations. When pressing with glycerin, be careful as glycerin can promote mold growth since it sucks moisture from the air.