Depotting MAC Eyeshadows

I recently purchased two limited edition MAC eyeshadows that I wanted to depot as I prefer my eyeshaodws in a palette. Depotting means taking the eyeshaodw and removing it from the plastic container so that is is just in pan form. You can buy eyeshadow in pan form from MAC but not typically when it is a limited edition eyeshadow. I was extremely nervous about depotting these as this was only my second time depotting MAC eyeshadows and also because they are limited edition I couldn't buy them again if they broke. Everything luckily worked out and I am going to explain in this post how I depotted them and what you will need.

In the above photo these are some of the things that you may want to use. I did not end up using the tweezers not did I use the pliers. I just really need the knife, magents, flat iron, wax paper, and your palette. Please be careful with the knife. This can be dangerous and you could cut yourself. so you need to be careful. If you are younger I would do this with your parents just to be safe.

So the first thing that you need to do is to turn on your flat iron so that it heats up a bit. Then you want to take your knife to remove the shadow from the plastic container. There is a little area where you can place the knife that will pop out the shadow. The below photo shows me removing it. 

So once you have removed it you will then have two parts. You will now only be working with the shadow on the left but will need to remove the label from the part on the right. 

Make sure to pop this piece back into the other part. You will be able to BacktoMac this shadow. Once you have 6 empty containers (whether it be lipstick, eyeshadow, etc) you can then bring them back to a store to get either a free lipstick or eyeshadow.

In order to get the eyeshadow out of the plastic you will need to take the parchment or wax paper and place it on top of your flat iron. Then take your eyeshadow and place it on top of the paper for 30 seconds or more depending on the heat of your iron. Remove it from the heat and then try to take your knife to pop out the shadow from the plastic. Basically the heat is helping to melt the glue to make it easier to remove the shadow. You may need to place it back on the heat again if its not coming out but it should eventually pop out.

Once you have it removed you will want to cut a piece of magentic to fit on the back of the eyeshadow that is now in the pan form. 

This is the label on the bottom of the eyeshadow. In order to remove this you will need to place it on the flat iron for about 10-15 seconds. You want to heat it up so that the glue loosens on the sticker. Once you have it loose you can peel it off and place it on the back of the magnet. This is very important to do so that you know what color the eyeshadow is. If you don't do this you won't know.

This is the eyeshadow now in my palette. I placed it in an older palette for now but may but it in one my newer ones. Either one will work fine with the newly depotted eyeshadow. 

So that's how to depot a MAC eyeshadow. There are many ways to do this but this is just what works best for me. I'm really happy that I didn't break the shadows and am so happy to now have them in palette form. I think I will get better use out of them now. How do you depot your shadows? Do you like buying MAC eyeshadows in pan form?

xx
Meredith