My Z-Palettes

This has been one of the most stressful weeks. It is characteristic of this time of year, I know that. But it does not make it any easier. The good thing, though, is that the school year will end soon enough and life will begin again in the fall.

Okay, enough rambling. You know what else is difficult but rewarding? Depotting.

Now, I know a lot of people are not fans of depotting. And certainly I think it is a personal thing. For example, I would never de-pot my Modern Renaissance palette or my Eyes-cream palette. To me, they are cohesive palettes and exist in its totality. However, I have done plenty of depotting over the last couple of months, and have come to some important conclusions.

Let's take a look at my two magnetic palettes:

My face powder palette

 I. The blushes: the one in the left-corner is a MUG blush in "Puppy Love." It is very pigmented and a rose-brown shade. It was easy enough to pop out of its compact- I should have just ordered the refill without the compact.

The rest of the blushes come from Tarina Tarantino's Dollskin blush palette- all are really nice though my favorite is the one to the right of "Puppy Love," called Feather. I depotted all four of these because the packaging was becoming too bulky for my container.

II. Highlighters: The largest highlighter is Mary Lou-manizer. This was incredibly easy to pry out with no damage. I found myself with so many compacts that I wanted an easier place to store all my face powders.

The square pan is Urban Decay's Sin, came as an Ipsy sample. Very generous sample size. I prefer it to the Mary Lou ,because it is pinker and paler.

The small circle highlighter is a sample of Candlelight by Kevyn Aucoin. Not really too impressed yet with it.

The rectangle is Japonesque pixellating (?) powder. I don't know what this does.

III. Contour: The light grey is from Lunatick Cosmetic labs. I ordered it as a single. It is best mixed with my taupe contour powders for even more of a shadowy look.

The actual taupe powder, though, came from a Bliss contour palette. This was the only one I kept, because it is cool toned and perfect for me. I was really impressed with the silkiness of the powder, and I wonder if Bliss sells single contour pans.It was really cheap from TJ Maxx and I hope to find a powder like it once I run out. I currently also own Nyx's blush in taupe, but I do find it has red-undertones that are not as flattering as the Bliss poweder.

As you can see with the Taupe color, depotting did some damage to it. It had to be repressed but it still is crumbly.

The eyeshadow. For clarity's sake, I won't break down each eyeshadow. Most of these singles are depotted from the BH Cosmetic's foil eyeshadow palette. It was extremely easy to depot these, but they did require a magnet. I also have four ABH singles, one Lunatick Cosmetic Lab's single, one Stila single (the larger circular pan, have only swatched it a couple of times), as well as a repressed shadow from a Sleek palette.)

The rectangular pans are Kat Von D, because I think that the palettes I had from her were inconsistent in color choice. I really like her matte formula. For me, when I depot her palette's damage is guaranteed.

I use both of these z-palettes constantly. The eyeshadow palette especially demonstrates my color preferences- I enjoy both warm and cool toned browns, purples, and golds- and a whole lot of shimmer.