What To Do With the Leftovers

Since running this blog, sometimes I'm left with items that I can't really use and while I generally reroute them to my mother so that she can donate them, sometimes I have items that I opt to repurpose. For those of you that aren't sure about what to do with the leftovers and you can't seem to get rid of them via swaps or donating them, this might be up your alley.

Conditioner
Leftover conditioner can either be decanted into a smaller container and then combined with others down the road. Alternatively they work great as a shaving cream as they tend to be quite moisturizing.


Lotion

When dealing with lotion, sometimes if it's a big bottle that doesn't work out, then I'll add in some cocoa butter lotion or shea butter lotion in order to balance it out.

If I have a small amount or the remainders of other lotions, then I'll combine them into a plastic container (similar to that in the picture) and use it as a hand lotion.

Nail Polishes

I actually have a bit of fun with this one. When I was younger I used to mix some different colours together in order to create a unique colour. Franken-polishes in this format is a great way to create something from either nail polishes you don't like or are too close to the end to really complete a manicure.

Another thing I love to do is paint with them. Now I don't mean painting on canvas, but rather, painting on tin. Of course, nail polish is a slightly difficult medium to work with and it might not be perfect but for the tin pictured on the left which contains lip balm and hair ties, it works out well.

Powdered Eyeshadows

It is very rare that I am unable to find a welcoming home for eyeshadows whether that is through swaps or giving it to friends. Now if you do have friends or random people you're willing to give them away to, do remember to disinfect them and you can do that by filling a spritz bottle with rubbing alcohol and spraying the eyeshadows (see: Disinfecting Your Makeup). If that's not an option then you can try these:

• Break up the pan if it is pressed then add the powders to a clear nail polish in order to create a nail polish.
• Try to create "franken-shadows" by breaking up pans and mixing the colours together. (See: How to Fix Your Broken Eyeshadow). This can be a lot of fun but also quite messy so make sure you have a clear area prepared as you do this. Do be very careful though and do not try to mix a variety of pigments together since some of them might not be approved for certain things (for example, sometimes you get a colour pigment that is approved for use near the eyes but not the lips, and so on).

Powdered Foundation
Sometimes you just happen to have ancient foundation, or perhaps it's mismatched, samples, or you're desperately waiting to get to the end of it to start a new one. If you happen to have darker hair and you want to use a "dry shampoo" blend, don't hesitate to make your own by simply adding in your unwanted foundation. There's a lot of recipes out there but this has been tried and true for me for the last 7 or so years:

• Grab an empty container, add cornstarch or baby powder that is cornstarch based.
• Add in the foundation that you don't want and mix them together.
• Use an old powder brush or kabuki brush to apply.

Powdered Blushes

While you can do all the same things that you can with an eyeshadow when it comes to creating a nail polish
or mixing colours together to get a new blush, I'm putting it separately so that you don't get the idea to mix an eyeshadow and a blush together. Remember, not all powders are approved for a variety of uses.

Shampoo

Similar to that of lotion, you can combine the remainders into one bottle to reduce the amount of bottles or clutter you might have. If you wash your bangs, then you can put the leftovers in another smaller container and keep it closer to the sink.

Another use came about when I got a bottle of shampoo that was barely usable. Turns out that it was great as a hand soap and gentle enough for me to also use it to wash my sponges. So it went into my magnificent soap dispenser that is shaped like a whale.


Soaps
Any small bits that you accumulate you can either attempt to repress it into another soap (I don't really go this route though) or save those ends and use them to hand wash your bras.

The Lonely Leftovers

These are the items that I have not come up with alternative use for as of yet: pencil eyeliners, lip balms, lipsticks, and lip liners

Items to Discard

There are just some items that you can't ever really giveaway, donate, or reuse (or at the very least, I haven't come up with a great reuse): mascara, and creamy or liquid eyeliners and/or eyeshadows.

Deconstructing a Blush

My Bobbi Brown blush has been haunting me for the last year now. It's great and while I love it, I've had it for almost four years! So here's a peek into the Red Labs in regard to reconstructing a new franken-blush!

The first thing is to figure out what colour I wanted. Luckily for me, I didn't really care, I just wanted something different. So I grabbed nectar and a sample packet of Everyday Minerals Glam Guru blush. I wish I had taken pictures of them side by side but alas, I was too excited. The EVM blush can be described as a "soft and earthy pink pigmented blush" and the BB blush is a pink coral. The closest I can get is to provide the two colours side by side to the right.

As you can see, they are a bit different. The problem I had was that I couldn't seem to finish the Nectar and the Glam Guru was in odd packaging that made it hard to get it out. As a result, I decided that combining them would be fun and a good learning experience. Sadly, there aren't very many photos since this got messy quick, but let us begin!

I broke up the pan of the Nectar blush with a bamboo skewer. I tried to break up the bigger chunks, but I figured it would be okay. Basically mixing a pressed blush and a loose powder one is somewhat difficult but still a good learning point. After breaking it up, I added the the powder blush and leveled the top.

After trying to make sure the two blushes were mixed as best as I could, I then added the alcohol. I did a direct pour of alchohol into the pan and when I realized I added too much too quickly (sigh), I went into recon mode. I took a paper towel and pressed into the powder mixture to get the excess alcohol and stop any overflow. Once it seemed stable, I grabbed some baby wipes and cleaned the outside of the pan and the surrounding area. 

Here's the "new" blush a few days after the experiment when I knew that the blush was fully dried. I have since cleaned it up a bit more but overall, I'm pretty happy with this experiment.