Tutorial: Depotting MAC Shadows

Depotting is a great option for those who are tired of pawing through their shadows trying to find a certain colour. It's also great if you're a freak for organizing, like I am. Or even for traveling- a 15 palette on vacation, a quad for your purse. Whatever! Another cool thing is that most (not all) MAC counters and stores will take the depotted shells back, and when you bring 6 in at once you will receive a free lipstick of your choice (excluding Viva Glam) from a MAC counter, or at a MAC store you may choose from a lipstick, lipglass, or eyeshadow.

Worried about getting your colours mixed up? Too lazy to print labels? That's fine. You can heat up the labels on the bottom of your shadow and re-stick them. If they look dirty or faded a baby wipe should make them legible again.

You can pick up a MAC 15 palette for about $16 CAD, and a quad for roughly $5. I had to go to an actual MAC store and not a counter, but the counters will have quads available soon enough. It is time consuming but not very difficult. I do remind you to be careful! You will have several opportunities to jab or burn yourself.

Below is a method you can use to depot your shadows with a straightening iron, instead of flame.

You will need:

• Straightening iron (any kind, as long as it's flat and you can fit a pan or two on it)
• Knife (I used a small steak knife)
• Strip of aluminum foil (to keep melting plastic off of your straight iron)
• Towel (optional, for sitting hot, stick pans and knife on)
• Tweezers (optional, for lifting the pan out)
• Qtips/Cotton pads & Alcohol (to remove glue from metal pan)
• Magnet (optional, to keep them in place, but I left mine sticky and skipped this for now)

I'm a perfectionist, so I sat down and wrote a list of my colours, then organized them in the order I wanted my palette. My 15 pallet is a spectrum from purple to blue, to teal, to green, to gold, to amber, golden reddy brown, to a reddish copper. See what I mean about this perfection business? My quad consisted of staple neutrals. Crystal Avalanche (shimmery white), Shroom (a muted golden beige highlight colour), Satin Taupe (a taupe brown with silvery bronze shimmer) and Carbon (a matte black.)

I put my straight iron on the hottest setting and went about the first step, which is popping the plastic pan out of the case.

STEP 1: Above, you will see that I have circled an indented area above the little sticky-outty part (technical term, right there!) You'll want to grip the shadow with your index finger on one side and your thumb on the other. Hold it down against a flat steady surface that won't be a big deal if you happen to slip and stab into. Angle the knife down and inwards into that edge. I had better luck trying the corners. Every little eyeshadow seemed to come apart differently. Some easier than others. Just press the tip of the knife in and jiggle it a bit. If you're not getting results, try another area. Be careful not to damage the eyeshadow.  

STEP 2: Once the pan is out, lay a strip of aluminum foil over the bed of your straightening iron and sit the eyeshadow pan and the empty case (label down) on top of the foil. Your label will be done before the eyeshadow. Check after a minute or two. Try to slide the tip of a small knife under the label. It should just lift up and come right off. I swiped the knife completely under it to separate it. That way it didn't curl like it may have if I had grabbed hold of one end and peeled it off. I immediately put the sticker inside the lid of my 15 palette, and on the back of my quad. I put another pan of shadow on beside the first one while I waited for the first to be done. I took it off of the iron and checked to see if the bottom had become slightly melted or warped. I pressed my knife against the bottom and wiggled it up under the shadow fairly easily. If it requires force you need to heat it up more, or you risk breaking your shadow. 

STEP 3: I lifted the metal pan out of the plastic casing on the end of my knife and "wiped" it off on to the towel. You could lift yours out with tweezers. It's very hot and I did burn my finger tips once or twice. I tried to remove some of the glue from the bottom with rubbing alcohol. Some came off in such a way that the glue peeled off in solid... Some were much messier. I wasn't successful at removing all of the stickiness on most of them, but I doubt I'll be playing musical pallets with a lot of them anyway. 

Rinse, repeat, collect your free makeup. You know the drill! Can't wait to go back to MAC and collect my 3 free shadows tomorrow! 

-H. Cat

Updated: Picked up my 3 freebies. I chose Electra, Parfait Amour, and Swish. Here are my palettes thus far. Excuse the crappy cell phone camera.