How To: Press Loose Mineral Eyeshadows

 

 

After my previous experimentation with using glycerin vs jojoba oil to press my mineral blushes, I have finally gone ahead and pressed all of my mineral eyeshadows! This is a more detailed tutorial with more photos than my previous post. Hope you find it helpful ^_^

Supplies:
- jojoba oil
- isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol)
- loose mineral eyeshadows
- small mixing container
- empty pans to press your eyeshadow into (I bought mine from eBay)
- something to press with (should fit into your empty pan, coins work great)
- something to stir with (toothpick or small cosmetic spatula works great)


1) Remove the sifter from your mineral eyeshadow container if it has one (will make getting the powder out much easier!)

 

 

2) Empty your loose minerals into the mixing container (or just use the existing container) and start adding jojoba oil DROP BY DROP until minerals start to clump together (careful not to add too much or will take forever to dry!). Then add alcohol, again drop by drop, until you achieve a wet-sand-like consistency.  The amount of jojobal oil/alcohol really depends on how much minerals you have, so just be careful and you should be fine!

 

2) Transfer the mixture into the empty pan



 

3) Lay a clean piece of cloth/fabric over the pan and press the coin onto it (press HARD!!). You will see that the fabric will have absorbed some of the excess liquid from your mixture.

 

4) Let dry (can speed up with light blowing from hairdryer, or just leave it out on window-sill), and place into your palette. Done!

Here are all the shadows I pressed.

 

 

 

Here are the swatches of the eyeshadows. The pigmentation from the bronze shimmer shade turned out very nice (same as before I pressed it). Unfortunately some of the darker shades did not become very pigmented (swatches are one finger swipe). They are buildable though so I don't feel I'll have trouble using them as crease shaders. If you want to use the darker shades as eye liner, you can also add a drop of water to the surface to the shadow, and make a nice paste to use as a "gel"eyeliner with a brush.

 

 

 

 

That's it for the tutorial on pressing loose mineral eyeshadows. Pretty simple right?! I'm super happy I did this as now I have a nice palette to open and use. Not to mention, I will actually use these shadows now (they previously just sat in my makeup drawer after I got too lazy to be opening those darn containers).

 

Let me know if you try this and how it goes!!