how to consolidate your lipsticks
Whether you have a drawer full of impulse buys or you've worn your favorite color down to a sad stump, here's a polished way to pare down your ammo.
By Sophie Schulte-Hillen March 2007
Watch our beauty editor mix her own lipstick palette in our new video.
You can always consolidate your collection by squishing each bullet into an empty palette_really satisfying_then scooping out the bottom (there's more left in there than it looks). Or here's the less artsy, more polished way: microwave each shade individually (a cream pitcher works well) and pour them into a palette, where it will harden all smooth and perfect.
What you need:
empty palette (we like Japonesque)
small pitcher or beaker (something with a lip)
lip brush
microwave
all those lipsticks you don't know what to do with
The Process:
Smash a lipstick into the pitcher, then scoop out the bottom (it makes up about a third of the bullet.)
Microwave on high for one minute and check if lipstick is melted. Continue nuking for 30 seconds at a time until it is completely liquid.
Quickly pour the molten lipstick into the palette scraping the bottom with a lip brush to get everything out. It'll harden in seconds, so haul ass.
Repeat with each lipstick until you have a full palette. The prettiest palette: start with your nudes and pale pinks and end with your deepest reds and purples.
Tempted to just nuke the whole palette at once? Lipsticks melt at different rates and also expand when they're hot so they can spill into neighboring pans. Melt each bullet individually and you'll avoid a Jackson Pollock disaster.
Mix new shades in manner of backstage pro.
http://www.dominomag.com/howtos/diy/2008/03/spring_makeup
Watch this process in action in our video.
