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Thursday, June 5, 2014

Pressing Loose Pigments

HI Ladies!
My lovely blogger friend Chelsea over at Tiger Love Beauty recently posted a tutorial on how to press loose pigments. You can check her tutorial out HERE. Her tutorial is very easy to follow and has pictures as well to explain each step. Thanks Chelsea!

I decided to try this out because I had a ton of MAC pigments that I got a few years ago during Christmas that I never use. The colors are all beautiful but using loose pigments is just messy. Pressed shadows are just easier and more convenient in my opinion. I figured that if I pressed my pigments, I would be more likely to use them.



Before pressing the loose pigments, I had to order some eye shadow pans and a Z Palette to hold the pans in. I purchase both on Amazon.

The eyeshadow pans were $7.99 for 25 pans plus $2.00 shipping. You can get them HERE.


I decided to buy the large Z Palette so that I had room to add more pigments in the future or in case I break down and buy some Makeup Geek Shadows or Inglot shadows since I have been really wanting both!


The large Z Palette was $19.99 and free shipping. You can get it HERE.


Both items came pretty quickly (in about a week or less). Besides the pans and palette, you also need rubbing alcohol and Glycerin. I'm not going to get into the details of the process of pressing the loose pigments since Chelsea's tutorial is pretty straight forward. If you are interested in doing this, I highly suggest checking her post out.


These are the MAC Loose Pigments that I pressed:



Here is my messy workstation:

I cleaned my up station several times since this process can get pretty messy.

Here are some tips for pressing pigments:
1. When buying shadow pans, make sure they are the magnetic ones. Some pans are not magnetic so you will also have to buy magnets. The pans I purchased from amazon were magnetic which made things easier and I didn't have to spend any extra money.

2. If you plan to put the sticker  from the pigment (with the name of the color) on the back of your pans or even if you plan to make your own, make sure that the sticker does not stick off the edges of the metal. Some of my stickers were bigger than my pan so I wrapped the sticker around the edge too. This was a mistake. When I poured the pigments, come of the color spilled and ended up sticking all over the sticker edge. It was very messy when I was cleaning the edging of the pans the next day. I ended up just cutting the edge of the sticker so that it did go over the edge. I suggest doing this step fist to avoid the mess.

3. When mixing the pigments, it is OK to over fill the pan. I was afraid to do this because I didn't want to overflow the pan. As a result, some of my pigments have significantly less product than others (once dried). When mixing the pigments with the liquids, I suggest mixing from the outside towards the middle. So basically make a little mountain of the pigments and when you pour the liquid onto the pigments, mix it towards the middle to avoid overflowing the product.

4.  I suggest letting your pigments dry overnight. After they are sitting for a few hours, the look dry but are not. I stuck my fingers in wet/semi wet pigment several times and ruined the pretty finish on some. To avoid this, just let it sit overnight even if they seem pretty dry.

5. After you press the pigments with the cloth and quarter (see Chelsea's tutorial if you want to know what I am talking about), I suggest going back with the rubbing alcohol and Q-tip to clean up the edges of the pans. You will spill some pigment over the edge and that's OK. Just make sure to clean it up once it dries so you are not making a mess of your palettes.

On to the results:

Here are swatches of each:

L-R: Darling Couqette, Gold Mode, Silk Stocking, Reflects Bronze, Gift O' Glamour, Naked, Jigs and Jive, Most Darling, Prettified

L-R: Ever Elegant, Rose Light, Maribu, Femininity, Dusty Desire, Reflects Blackened Red, Blue Brown, Gilded Green, Dark Soul

After swatching the pressed pigments I did find that they are not quite the same texture as regular shadows which makes sense. They are much thicker and not as solid. As you can see in some of the swatches, when running my finger through some of the colors, I grabbed wayyy to much. Depending on how your pressed pigments come out, you may have to be careful when dipping your brush into them. Some of my pigments were chunkier while other ones were more fine pigments.


When I used some of the more neutral colors and didn't think they were AS pigmented as the pigments as loose powders however, it was only my first time using these this way. I could just have to get past the first layer of the pigments. Either way, there was no mess and I was happy with how my makeup looked.

Here are pics of me wearing the following:

Lids: Darling Couqette and Gold Mode
Crease: Naked
Outer V: Ever Elegant
Please excuse my crazy brows in some of these close ups


Lids: Maribu
Crease: Femininity
Outer V: Dusty Desire

I am so glad that I decided to do this! I honestly feel like I just got a brand new palette! I also found this process really fun and enjoyable. I wish I had some friends that wanted me to do this to their loose pigments! I hope that you found my tips helpful. If you decide to do this, I would love to hear your experience!

Have you pressed pigments before? Did you find it easy? Post your comments below!


-Tanya xoxo

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