How to salvage a broken eyeshadow
A broken eye-shadow is irritating; it spills when you open the compact, it covers the inside of your make up bag with pigmented powder, and it's generally messy and difficult to apply. However, if you're particularly fond of the colour it can be hard to throw it away, since it is technically still usable.
This guide will help you to salvage your eye-shadow and get it settled neatly inside its case again. You'll need a tiny amount of alcohol for this - some recommend rubbing alcohol, but I've found that cheap vodka works fine as well (I'm also much more likely tohave a bottle of vodka just lying around close at hand).
First, scrape all the powder cake, even the unbroken pieces, out of the case and decant into a small bowl or dish. Then crumble the eye-shadow up into a fine powder with no lumps. A mortar and pestle would be ideal for this task, but if you don't have one you can crush the powder with the back of a spoon, or use a cuticle stick to break up the smaller pieces.
Once you've reduced the entire cake to fine powder, stir in a few drops of alcohol, just enough so that the powder sticks together when pressed with the back of a spoon.
Now spoon the mixture back into the original case. Don't worry too much about trying to press it in flat, we'll get to that in a moment.
Then get a small flat object (a coin is ideal - I used a fifty pence piece), wrap it in tissue paper and use it to squash the powder down into the case. The slightly rough surface of the tissue seems to prevent sticking, whilst if you use the back of the spoon the powder tends to stick to it and break back into clumps again.
Carry on pressing the powder down into the case until it's smooth, flat, and properly shaped to the container. If specks get stuck in the grooves around the outside of the case, just scrape them out with a cuticle stick or something similarly long and pointy.
Leave it for ten minutes or so, until the alcohol has evaporated away and the cake has set.
This guide will help you to salvage your eye-shadow and get it settled neatly inside its case again. You'll need a tiny amount of alcohol for this - some recommend rubbing alcohol, but I've found that cheap vodka works fine as well (I'm also much more likely tohave a bottle of vodka just lying around close at hand).
First, scrape all the powder cake, even the unbroken pieces, out of the case and decant into a small bowl or dish. Then crumble the eye-shadow up into a fine powder with no lumps. A mortar and pestle would be ideal for this task, but if you don't have one you can crush the powder with the back of a spoon, or use a cuticle stick to break up the smaller pieces.
Once you've reduced the entire cake to fine powder, stir in a few drops of alcohol, just enough so that the powder sticks together when pressed with the back of a spoon.
Now spoon the mixture back into the original case. Don't worry too much about trying to press it in flat, we'll get to that in a moment.
Then get a small flat object (a coin is ideal - I used a fifty pence piece), wrap it in tissue paper and use it to squash the powder down into the case. The slightly rough surface of the tissue seems to prevent sticking, whilst if you use the back of the spoon the powder tends to stick to it and break back into clumps again.
Carry on pressing the powder down into the case until it's smooth, flat, and properly shaped to the container. If specks get stuck in the grooves around the outside of the case, just scrape them out with a cuticle stick or something similarly long and pointy.
Leave it for ten minutes or so, until the alcohol has evaporated away and the cake has set.
xxVickyxx
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