To De-Pot or Not?

Haha!  This post is a revision because YES, I did my math wrong, thanks for pointing out my error, Eternalmi! 

After having de-potted 18 eye shadows to turn them in for three free lipsticks, I wondered what would be more economical: buying the six potted eye shadows to get a free lipstick, or buying the six palette refills and buying a lipstick separately?  I hated math all through school and I still do now, but here is my second lame attempt at finding out the answer to this mystery.

If you buy six potted eye shadows for $14.50 each, your total would come out to $87.00.  And after you've de-potted them and turned the empty pots in for a free lipstick, you would still have a total of $87.00, because the lipstick was free.  So the math would look something like this...

6 x $14.50 = $87.00 + Free Lipstick = $87.00

On the other hand, if you buy six palette refills for $11.00 each, your total would come out to $66.00.  There is no free lipstick with this kind of purchase, so you would have to buy your lipstick separately, which means you must add the value of the lipstick, $14.00, to your total, and this would turn out to be $80.00.  So the math would look something like this...

6 x $11.00 = $66.00 + $14.00 = $80.00

Therefore, if you buy the potted eye shadows, de-pot them and turn six in for a free lipstick, you would actually be spending more money, namely, $7.00.  Not to mention, de-potting those eye shadows was pretty hard work and it took quite a bit of time.  I can't think of any pros to buying the potted eye shadows, because even if you are able to recycle the pots through the Back to Mac program, you wouldn't have to recycle the pots to begin with if you never bought them in the first place, right? 

Personally, to save myself the hassle of having to deal with all that sticky glue and breathing in the alcohol fumes and breaking my hands to rip into the plastic, I am going to buy only the palette refills from now on.  My answer to the question: To De-Pot or Not? would have to be NOT.  Just buy the palette refills because it's cheaper and easier.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

Love,

Geneys  :o)

How To De-Pot Your MAC Eye Shadows

After my haul from MAC, I decided to transfer all of my MAC eye shadows to the palettes I bought.  Let me just say that this was no easy feat!  This was my first time de-potting and I found that it was very difficult to do.  At one point in the process, I turned my hand really red trying to cut through the plastic.  As difficult as it was, though, eventually I got used to de-potting after 18 eye shadows!  Below I will show you the tips and tricks I learned to make this process a little easier.

In order to de-pot your eye shadows, you will need:

1.  Your Eye Shadow

2.  Magnet Stickers (Michael's sells these in squares)

3.  A Small Plastic Dish

4.  Rubbing Alcohol (91%)

5.  A Small Knife (I'm using a mini Swiss Army Knife from my sister)

6.  A Pair of Wire Cutters (Ideally VERY sharp)

7.  3/4" Round Labels with the Eye Shadow Names Printed Out (I used Avery's 05408 Labels)

8.  A Paper Towel

All of these components are displayed below.

To start, open your eye shadow case.  Take your small knife and stick the tip of it into the groove that separates the top and bottom.  If you are having trouble locating the groove, here is a picture below where I have stuck the tip of my knife into it.

Wiggle your knife until you hear a pop.  This pop means that the top has separated from the bottom.  Take the top part off, and keep the bottom part in a bag somewhere, because you will be able to turn in six of these for a free lipstick at any MAC counter.  The empty bottom part will look like the picture below.

Next, take a look at the top part that you were able to separate from the bottom.  There are two indentations on the sides of the black plastic piece.  Use your wire cutters and make a cut on each side of the wider indentation.  In the picture below, I am making the second cut into the wider indentation with my wire cutters.

Then use your wire cutters again to try and pry the lip of the wider indentation away from the metal pan.  BE CAREFUL.  For me, this was the hardest on my hands and my patience.  After much difficulty, I was finally able to expose the separation between the metal pan and the black plastic piece, as shown below.

Next, take your alcohol and pour some into your plastic dish.  Use your small knife and scoop some of the alcohol onto the tip.  Slightly wedge the tip of your small knife between the metal pan and the black plastic piece, and keep adding several more drops of alcohol with your knife.  Wait a few seconds for the alcohol to do its work.  Then wedge your knife deeper into the separation between the metal pan and the black plastic piece, as shown below.

Again, wiggle your knife until the metal pan completely separates from the black plastic piece.  Keep the metal pan and throw away the black plastic piece.

At this point, you will notice that there is a bunch of leftover glue stuck to the bottom of the metal pan.  Take the paper towel and dip it into the alcohol.  Rub off the rest of the glue from the metal pan with this paper towel.  At the end, the bottom of the metal pan should be squeaky clean, as shown below.

Then take a piece of magnet sticker and cut out a circle.  Stick the circle onto the back of the metal pan.  If you can find magnet stickers that are already in the shape of a circle, this would be really helpful.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get my hands on these, so I cut out a retarded circle, as shown below. 

You're almost done, peel the corresponding label off and affix it on top of the magnet sticker, as shown below.

Lastly, place your metal pan into your palette, and you should be finished de-potting this eye shadow!

If you need to take a closer look at the steps, you can click on any of the pictures above and you will be able to view them with greater clarity.  I have watched many videos on this subject, but they did not show me the steps with very much detail, so this made it very difficult for me to figure it all out by myself.  I know the lighting was bad, but I hope these pictures will help you see exactly what I am talking about.

And FYI, MAC sells eye shadows in the form of palette refills, so you can skip this whole process.  I simply chose the regular eye shadows for the sake of this tutorial.  If you have any questions or comments on this subject, I'm here.

Love,

Geneys  :o)