Making Lipstick Pans!

The make up stash that Andy's sister gave me a while back included some Mac palettes with lippies in them. As the piccy below shows she'd roughly depotted them which served the purpose fine but being as OCD as I am I decided they needed a 'tidy up'. I'd thought I'd share how I did it in case you ever need to do the same.

I started by using a plastic spatula to transfer the lipstick into an empty metal pan (sterilise these first with cosmetic alcohol if you have it. I didn't so just ran them through the dishwasher on a super hot wash!)

Using a pair of pliers I then held the pan over the gas cooker light to melt it. I made sure to keep the pan about 5 inches above the flame and also moved it continually backwards and forwards to prevent either the pan or the lipstick in it from burning. 

It should take 2-3 minutes for the lipstick to melt completely which seems like a long time but its far better to do it slowly - no-one wants burnt lippie! You can also help the process along by removing it from the heat and giving it a quick stir with the spatula every now and again.

Once the lipstick was fully melted I set the pan aside and allowed it to cool completely. Repeat 19 times and....

Voila!

This method is of course only really practical if you have a small amount of lipstick to depot as I did although you could possibly use blush pans that would hold a bit more. You could also depot lippies into plastic jars in which again hold more - in that case you'd need to melt them in a metal measuring spoon/cup and then pour into the jars :)

Until next time,