We all know that horrible feeling, when your favorite palette hits the floor and in worst case both the packaging and the product gets broken. But did you know, that in both cases, it can be fixed?

In this post I will show you how depot and fix broken makeup at home, without any fancy tools. The only things you need for depotting your makeup is a straightening iron, some parchment paper and preferrably something, where you can put your depotted pans. I suggest getting some Z-palettes, because they come with magnets and very handy.

For me, depotting is also like tidying. Some palettes are just too big and some palettes are so plain, that I forget that they even exist. Oh, and then there are those palettes, that have only a few shades, that I would use. Depotting gives me the opportunity to be creative and create my own palettes. And Z-palettes take up less space, than some other palettes. And what I love about them, is that I can see the colors through the packaging. And yes, they’ve also saved me, when I’ve had a broken a packaging, but have not been ready to let go of the product.

Depotting is also the ultimate test for your favorite products: is the actual product (the pan) good, or was it just a pretty packaging?

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How to depot makeup

The easiest way to depot makeup is to lift them up from the packaging. But not all the pans come off that easily. Actually, most of them don’t. The glue is usually pretty strong, and when you try to lift up the pan, the powder can get shattered. You can carefully try this method at first, and if it doesn’t work, try some heat.

Makeup depotting with a straightening iron is pretty simple (and sounds scarier than it is). The idea in using a straightening iron for depotting makeup is simply to melt the glue. When the glue melts, the pans either fall off the packaging, or they can be easily lifted from it.
I do most of my depotting this way.

How to depot makeup with a staightening iron

Before you start melting your products, make sure you’ve ripped the outer layer of the packaging off, if there is one. In this case, I ripped these two big boards from this big packaging. But with sleek palettes, I didn’t have to rip anything off.

First, apply some parchment paper on the straightening iron, so that you don’t melt the plastic packaging or ruin your iron. The plastic is gonna melt a little anyway, or at least it gets a little softer. The glue melts as well. The time varies, as it has a lot to do with how thick the plastic is.

There are two ways to get the pans off after the heat. You can either push the plastic from behind the pan, so that it simply just falls off, or you can lift the pan off, since the glue has melted and it’s not there anymore to keep it in place. Pushing if off works best, if the plastic has melted soft and it’s not too thick.

You also need some kind of a tool to work with. I used a makeup spatula, which is also thin enough for lifting the pans off from the sides.

Once you’ve got the pans off, you need to clean them from any glue residue. I usually do this once they’ve cooled down, so I can just scratch it off without burning myself (because obviously the glue is on fire).

After that, you need to glue a magnet on the pan, so that it stays on the Z-palette. Now some pans are already magnetic, but not all. Z-palettes already come with magnet stickers, so this part is easy.

Then you can just create your own palettes and enjoy the extra space, that depotting makeup gives you!

What tools you need for depotting

You’ll need:

*A straightening iron
*Parchment paper

*Makeup pans
*Magnets & a spatula
*Z-palette

How to fix broken makeup (powders) with alcohol

1. First, grind the powder as fine as you can get it. I used my spatula for this.
2. Next, pour it to a clean pan.
3. Then, pour some alcohol in it and give the mix a little twirl. Then you can just press it gently and leave it to dry. That’s it!

Here it is (almost) dry! How gorgeous is that shade? That’s why I had to save it.

I know pure alcohol is the best for this (since it just evaporates), but I’ve accidentally found another thing, that works. I actually use my brush cleanser, which is from KICKS.fi*. You can find pure  It’s mostly alcohol, which explains why it works for this as well.

I’ve bought all my Z-palettes from Beauty Bay. You can shop them here*. They also sell eyeshadow pans*, if you want to build your own palette that way.

But amazon is another good place to shop all of the tools you need such as *makeup pans , *magnets & a spatula & *Z-palettes.

Have you ever depotted your makeup?