I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Cyber Monday e.l.f. order and while I was doing that, I did take a hard look at my current stash of items and realized that it really was time to get rid of some things. Or at the very least, organize them better. Enter the use of a magnetic palette.
I wasn't a stranger to the concept of it, after I did have a mark palette that I never used however it was confined to the specific mark eyeshadows and blushes. The concept of the Z Palette, UNII Palette or even one off of Etsy offers greater flexibility, which means that all those eyeshadows that I've had lying around can finally be in one spot.
The selection process was a bit difficult (not really). The first thing I had to do was analyze my stash to figure out what exactly I needed. Because I'm constantly tossing things into my makeup bag and I forget this eliminated the use of the Z Palette or one off of Etsy. The Z Palette and several of the ones off of Etsy are made of cardboard, some are water resistant, but not waterproof. The Z Palette has a window, so you can see what you have stored in there whereas the ones on Etsy do not. Either way, cardboard was not an option for me since I couldn't imagine all of my items just knocking around. I am always on the move and honestly, if I didn't have to move my makeup bags around as much as I do, I would have probably gone for the palette Prince of Darkness.
Given the title, I went with the UNII. It is much smaller than the other ones listed, but it is made of plastic. And trust me, two hours of this thing knocking around my makeup bag and I was mighty relieved I opted for a hard plastic cover.
If you check out reviews on YouTube, note that a lot of people have reviews of the older UNII model and not the latest one. I got the latest one which cannot be taken apart to be cleaned. This didn't bother me much (okay, maybe it did just a little, but not enough to warrant me disliking the product). What I was mildly annoyed with was the colour. I chose Midnight and I stared at the website for quite some time so that I knew what I was getting. If you look at the picture closely you will see that there's glitter. (Click on the image and you should be able to see it a bit better). Which was appalling. I did not anticipate glitter. In all seriousness, that really annoyed me but it wasn't a big deal. Just note that all of the colours on their site might be just a bit on the glittery side.
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| The empty souls of packaging that once held eyeshadows and blush. |
Depotting! I got the UNII last Friday and got to work on depotting. Which is somewhat fun, but a whole lot of work. Thankfully my very patient boyfriend stayed out of the bathroom as I asserted my inner mad scientist while trying to get the pans out of their packaging.
The L'Oreal eyeshadow was easy. As was the Bobbi Brown blush. The Kat Von D (Beethoven) was the worse. Before I get into that though, I used the alcohol method. Since I have no pictures of the process I'll try to make this as clear as possible.
You will need:
- X-Acto Knife (or something similar with a fine tip)
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Paintbrush
- Tissue & Q-Tips
- Try to wedge the knife in between the plastic container and the pan. Create a slight angle with it.
- Grab your paintbrush, dip it into the alcohol, then press it against the blade so that it drips along the side of the pan and the plastic packaging.
- Repeat until you are able to wedge the pan out.
Seems simple. The whole idea is that you want the alcohol to get beneath the pan to dissolve the glue. It's okay if the alcohol gets into the makeup because the alcohol will end up disinfecting them. Once you get it out of the plastic wrappings (of doom), then lay it down and put a few drops of alcohol on the back to dissolve any additional glue that may be there. I used a combination of tissues and Q-Tips to really get rid of all of the alcohol. After that I was free to put the magnet-receptive material and on the back of it you can put down the colour name and brand (depending if the size can accommodate that much information).
Looks nice, right? Don't mind all the dents that occurred on the Kat Von D palette. Rad Purple flew across my BF's bathroom and then I found myself cleaning up this dark purple for a good portion of the night. Nonetheless, yes, some were much harder to get out (the blue suffered a bit of damage as well). Happily, the rest of them didn't do too badly.
The palette comes with a mirror which is covered with tissue in this picture. Given the Rad Purple's instability, I decided to make sure that I keep a piece of tissue over all of it and in that way hopefully keep it a bit clean in the long run.
I've only had this palette for a few days and I love the fact that it has forced me to really examine my makeup collection and cut down on it. The set of 60 eyeshadows that I had but never used? This weirdly got me to finally get rid of them because I knew that deep down I wouldn't use them. Mostly because I would not want to depot them.
Product: UNII Cosmetics Palette
Price: $29
Would Recommend? Yes.
Takeaway: Smaller than others but practical for travelling. May cause you to examine if your collection of powders is worth it because depotting is an "adventure."
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