Beauty Tips: How To Depot Your MAC Eyeshadows

So I finally took the plunge and depotted some MAC eyeshadows and blushes the other day. As most of you probably know, if you bring in 6 empty products to MAC, you can turn them in for a free eyeshadow, lipgloss or lipstick (at MAC stores), or a lipstick (at MAC counters). It is their recycling program known as Back 2 MAC. The products can be pretty much anything, the container of something that you finished up all the way, or a product that you have depotted. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but the task is pretty daunting and I was afraid that my eyeshadows would just crack everywhere and it would be a disaster. The method that I use is the hair straightener method, basically heating up the insert until the pan comes out. I find this easy, and everyone has a straightener. I will show you here how I did it and hopefully it will help someone!

So what you need:
- the product you are depotting: ie eyeshadow or blush
- hair straightener
- tweezers, metal nail file, or butter knife (feel free to substitute with whatever)
- magnetized tape (to apply to back of pan, so that it sticks in your palette)
- your MAC palette

How to Depot:
1) Taking pan (with insert) out of eyeshadow pot. If you look at the front of the eyeshadow pot, you will notice an indent that runs along the length of the pot, wedge your tweezer or nail file into that and wiggle it around, the pot will pop out. It's best to use something with a pointed hard tip, cause it will get in the area easier. Do not apply too much force here, if done right, it should pop out.

2) Remove pan with insert and place on hair straightener (already heated up). I used my CHI straightener, it only has one heat setting on it, so it gets VERY hot. Place the eyeshadow pan with insert onto the hair straightener plate. Do not leave it on there for too long, I found that it helped to check it every 10 seconds or so. You may notice a plastic burning smell, this means it's melting. You don't want the pan burning and destroying your straightener, so please be careful. I suggest using an old straightener that you don't care about if you can.

3) Push the back of the eyeshadow insert with your tweezer to check if the pan is ready to come out. Once the pan has been heated enough, it will begin to separate in the back, the glue will melt and the pan will come out, you can check if it's ready by gently pushing on the back of the inset with your tweezer. If it's not ready yet, you will know, the back will be kind of warped and soggy almost when it is ready (as seen in pic above).

 

4) Remove the pan from the insert slowly.  Once the pan is ready to come out, hold onto the insert and slowly pull the pan out. This is probably the hardest part because it's hot. Be careful! Clean any excess glue off the back if needed, I find blushes have more spread out glue, eyeshadows aren't too bad. I just leave the glue as is.

5) Place the back of the eyeshadow pot on the straightener to melt the label off (you can do this simultaneously when you heat up the other part if you like. This time around, do not leave the pot on the straightener for as long as you did last time, it won't take a long time to melt the label off.

6) Remove label from back of packaging. Take your tweezers and gentle peel the label off, it should come off really easily.

7) Place label onto back of pan. The label on the back is the exact same size as the pan, so try to line it up neatly on the back. The glue on the back of the label and on the pan helps it all stick together nicely.

8) Put magnet on back of pan.  I have to redo this step, I cut up a fridge magnet and taped it on the back, then I flipped my palette to see if they stuck and they all fell out! I would recommend buying some magnetic tape at a craft store and use that. The kind that is sticky on the one side.

9) Place in eyeshadow palette. I chipped the two trying to get them out, trial and error for next time.  But I think they came out pretty nice regardless.

10) Put the insert back into the pot and gather all the empties to take back to MAC! :) Notice the happy face below?

This same method works for depotting blushes too, I started with eyeshadows cause they are easier. The plate on my straightener isn't very wide so for the blushes, I had to heat on different angles to get the whole surface melted.

Have you depotted your shadows and blushes? What is your method?