What do you do when you break a beauty product? Do you try to salvage it? Share your horror stories!
If it’s a powder product, I definitely try to re-press it with alcohol. If it’s in a glass bottle, that’s pretty much just a trash situation!
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The only product I’ve had break was a bottle of nail polish. Since it was a set and I don’t like incomplete sets- I replaced it the next day.
I have broken two eyeshadows UD Graffiti and MAC Swish. I still have them, I have to press them with alcohol – thanks for the tip Christine 🙂
i’m a broke college student. i try to salvage everything. a part of me weeps inside when my make up cracks because it means i can’t take it around with me.
I try to repress it. I just can’t stand throwing any of my products away.
…. I cry….lol
Lol, me too… I always try to save it though, no matter what… I hate wasting stuff.
i’ve never actually broken a product oO
i’ve only broken 2 revlon colorstay foundations. i broke 1 and the next the other, lol they both fell off my bathroom counter, i was so angry they were both brand new i just threw them away all the product had spilled all over the floor i didnt know how to save it. 🙁 I hate glass containers!
What happens if it were a “lipstick” ? I got Candy lipstick from Estee Lauder’s free gift with purchase and the lipstick broke at the bottom part off the end of the tube. I never returned it or anything, I just don’t push the lipstick up all the way. It still works. hehe =o)
I’ve always just taken a lighter and melted the bottom a bit, then smushed it back in!
I never thought of that, that’s a good idea. Thanks Christine!!
They also make pro palettes specifically for you to pot your lipsticks in. I wouldn’t have the heart to purposely do that to my lipsticks, but it would be a great solution if they were broken anyway. Then you would just apply with a lip brush. Gossmakeupartist on YouTube has a kit video. He showed the palette on there. I have been considering getting on just in case.
I’ve had this happen as well! I generally just melt the lipstick into a a couple of pans =)It can be inconvenient if you dont use palettes, but its great because you get all the product out!
i’ve only broken 2 revlon colorstay foundations. i broke 1 and the next day the other, lol they both fell off my bathroom counter, i was so angry they were both brand new i just threw them away all the product had spilled all over the floor i didnt know how to save it. 🙁 I hate glass containers!
That happened to me before…I was more annoyed at the thought of having to clean up the ginormous mess it made then I was at the fact that my product was all gone lol..
After I wipe my tears, LOL, I try to make it work. The one thing I broke was one of my favorite MAC lipsticks and I actually ended up pressing it in a pot and it worked out fairly well. I had to always apply it with a brush but it was better than throwing it out!
i cry and cringe a bit but then i clean it up and throw it away
i feel like it’s slightly unsanitary if it’s already been broken and spills on the counter and floor and i try to press it again
and repressing things is kinda a pain in the behind
ohwait i just remember i broke a mini calvin klein lipstick before and was so sad because it’s the perfect shade for a natural look so i just smushed and scraped the remnants into a tiny glass chanel sample jar and melted it on top of a straightening iron
i dont use it that often though since it’s so inconvenient to get out
I broke only one product It was an eyeshadow, Fashion by MAC so I just crushed It up and put It in a jar and called It a day
I’ve only broken one and I haven’t bothered to fix it yet because looking at it is heartbreaking! It’s a Smashbox Fusion Lights thingy and cost $36. Was thinking of just turning it into powder…or shoving it to the back of my drawers and ignoring it :<
I cry. Just kidding (maybe). Actually all I do when I break a pressed product is I take an old empty sifter jar, from Bare Essentials or something of the sort, and clean it out. Then I take the pieces of broken product and just crush it up inside the jar, turning it into loose product. I’ve really only done this about twice, both with MAC products (LE eyeshadow and blush) that I dropped on tile floor (ouch), and it happens to work well for me. As long as I’m able to salvage the remaining product, it’s all good. I’ve never tried repressing with alcohol though, I’ll have to give that a try next time my clumsy self breaks an expensive LE product, which I usually do with my luck.
I turn it into loose powder too. Awesome name by the way! 🙂
I dropped the bronzer pallet from Smashbox’s Desert Chic line. I just scooped it all up and put it in a little storage tub. It’s all blended now, but still works great!!
I’ve broken things like lipsticks before. If that happens I just rescue the remains and put it into a little plastic pot. I’ve broken pressed powder compacts as well, those I usually just throw away if it’s at the end of it’s life.
Oh goshhh I’ve broken SO many products it’s not even funny :/ Ive broken powders and bronzers and eyeshadows and lipsticks… I usually throw it in my “other makeup drawer” that contains things I don’t use but don’t wanna throw away hahahaha
Hey i have an “other makeup drawer” !! haha
Me too! All MAC, I think 🙁 A bronzer, Skin Finish, Mineralize eyeshadow duo, LE lipstick… and I’ve kept every single one of them! The Skin Finish sits in a drawer to be used with a brush instead of a sponge, the eyeshadow dome broke clean off but I’m so gonna try the alcohol trick, and the lipstick may still be salvaged by following the lighter trick. Thanks Christine!
All I ever seem to break are perfumes, where i drop it and it never wants to spray ever again. Then I cry because this has happened frequently.
I don’t think I have ever broken a beauty product but I did lose a lip gloss I really loved and one that wasn’t exactly cheap. Cle de Peau lip gloss. I somehow lost it and looked for it for days at work & home and never found it 🙁
A few weeks ago my brandnew Chanel Rouge Allure Gloss dropped and broke 🙁 I went back to the shop, they couldn’t do anything for me. I luckily dropped it when it was still in the paper box so I scraped out the box and what was left from the bottle, took all the little glasspieces out and put them in a little plastic jar. No more expensive glasspackaging for me!
I’ve broken eyeshadow before, i just repressed it with alcohol
but after that i stopped touching it lol
I try to salvage everything! So far I have repressed eye shadows, highlighters and powder foundations, scooped up the rest of liquid foundation out of the glass bottle into a plactic container and thinned nail polish back into its former consistency. Maybe it’s not hip but I learned from an early stage on to never waste a product, regardless if I paid for it with my own money or if it was a present.
Press a product with alcohol???? that’s new for me… I usually put the product in a box and use it as well 🙁
I’ve had the same purple eyeshadow quad from covergirl, and everytime it’s ended up cracking on me. Everytime! Usually I just keep it, but lately I’ve just given up. Maybe it’s a covergirl thing, I don’t know. The only Mac thing that’s ever cracked on me was the cover on the pro case, so I just tossed it and bought a new one. The new one is definitely more sturdy so I’m happy.
I try to save it! 🙂
Does anybody know whether it’s possible to re-press a mineralized eyeshadow? I dropped my MAC Soften the Mood from the In The Groove LE. 🙁 The only colour that is completely crushed is the brown on the right. 🙁
I’ve never heard of re-pressing broken pressed powders- I never knew that was possible! How do you do it?? I’ve got loads of broken eyeshadows that are crying out for it!
Mash it up, pour a little alcohol, then push the mixture together! 🙂
how do you press it with alchohol?
Mash it up, pour a little alcohol, then push the mixture together!
my friend’s boyfriend stepped on my bag, at the exact spot where my black MAC eyeshadow pot was. And I didn’t realise at the time. And then another girl chucked the bag across the room and it landed on the floor. Both bag and eyeshadow were broken and trashed. And since it wasn’t a limited ed, I dumped it and bought a new one 😀
It’s been a while since i’ve broken one of my products, i guess the last would be a face power that shatered and i threw it away becuase it wasnt worth salvaging.
Use it as an excuse to buy something NEW!!! 😉
You can re-press powder make-up with alcohol?! WOWEE I’ve never heard of that before….see, I learn new things from your blog everyday, Christine!! 😉 Now can someone kindly tell me how you do this and also, what utensils you use to do it? Also, does it work on all powder items or just eyeshadows/blushers?! 🙂
cry…esp when i shattered rocker nail polish on a light coloured riven finish stone tile floor…eeeep….
but i have to say it doesn’t happen THAT often that a product all out breaks on me. the worst is some of the eyeshadows i’ve depotted, where i’ve managed to somehow destabilise them so that they are slowly disintegrating over time….LOL…
I’m so clumsy! I broke an MSF not even two days after I bought it! Can you imagine the look on my face when it broke? I’ll put it this way, I had to grab the broom so I could sweep my jaw up off the floor.
If I break something and it spills then whatever was spilled is garbage.
But if I drop a compact or eyeshadow or something and the product is contained, then I’ll re-press.
I drop stuff a lot so I learned how to repress them. Marine life was the hardest to repress. Oh yes… I dropped Marine Life… =(
If its a shadow, I do try to press it. Unless it fell somewhere especially nasty. (My sink, for a LONG time, had NO cover on the drain, so every time my hands shook and I dropped my palette, it would jostle the magnet on the shadow pan loose, and I’d have to dig it out of the U bend so the metal pan wouldn’t hurt the plumbing. Never DID trust the shadow after that, though. Even knowing I use Rubbing Alcohol to press pigments. Yuck. I even boiled the pans in water for several minutes before pressing another pigment into them!)
Lipsticks, I either apply with a lip brush, or if its worn to the nub, with the plasticky base, I make chapstick and mix it in for pigmentation.
Depends on what it is. The last beauty product that broke for me was a blush(that was almost all gone) I just put the powder/solid peices in a small tin so I could still use my blush brush.
Now I have bought a new blush! just finishing it off(slowly).
Cos i know im like MISS CLUMSY, i buy all these spare small cosmetic container jars and pots and bottles and i keep them in my drawer until i break something, also keeping mac sample jars and other small containers have been a life saver. Ive even used an old contact lens case to store two broken mac lipsticks lol
One of my nail polishes broke when I kept them all in a case – it didn’t leak outside the case, but it got all over my other bottles. Luckily, it was clear, but they still look gross! I threw away the broken bottle, because there’s nothing that can be done.
I will have to look up how to repress powder! I’ve only ever broken powder shadow, and luckily, only lost about a quarter. It was a color I don’t use very often, so I don’t miss that chunk too much…
I cry and cry and say ‘why God? WHY??’! Then I got buy another…
Seriously, I dropped a Sugarpill shadow after owning it for two days and it took a week+ to talk myself out of not buying another one.
I dropped a baked shadow from Laura Gellar and broke it, so I found an empty sample container and crushed it up to make it a loose powder instead.
All I’ve broken is a few cheap pressed powder blushes. A couple were in a large Ulta-brand makeup kit; one I threw out, and one I saved. After I broke my favorite pressed powder blush compact (separate brand), I combined that broken blush with my other broken one, and dumped it all in a small plastic container. Works great as loose powder blush 🙂
OMG this is my question! Thank you, Christine and thank you to all of you who have answered! 🙂
I’ve broken two much-loved products: a MAC eyeshadow (Idol eyes) and a MAC MSF (By Candelight, I’m soooo bummed about that one!) I’ve used them loose out of their own containers, but some spills every time, so I haven’t used them much. 🙁 How do I repress them with alcohol? and/or should I just continue to use them loose (and maybe change the container)?
Thanks again! You’re the best, Christine! 🙂
It has happened to me a few times when I first started de-potting shadows. I try to salvage it with the same alcohol-quarter-wrapped-in-cloth press type of solution. All those shadows I’ve broken have “healed” except for one which is Carbon. At first I thought it was an issue of the finish but I had another matte finish shadow that faired pretty well. What sucks is that everytime I open my palette, there are always bits and pieces of Carbon cracking in the tin but thankfully it’s a permanent color. I would die if it was LE!!
I’ve broken three Illamasqua lipsticks off, finally I came to accept the fact that I just can’t order lipstick through the mail when it is over 100 degrees out, it makes them melt-y and they always snap off at the base afterward.
I don’t retract the broken lipsticks much now & use a lipbrush to apply them- but having read your above comment about using a lighter to re-stick them, I think I’ll give that a try! <3
If I break an eyeshadow, I just place it in a sample jar and mush it up some more. Voila, a pigment! I had to do it with Satin Taupe, and a couple of Max Factor shadows from a looong time ago… Same with lip products, I’ll just melt them down into sample jars if I break them off of the tube or something.
Anything else though I’d probably trash.
any glass or hard plastick-garbage. powder i will save in a clean jar.
I dropped an almost full bottle of Diorskin nude foundation a couple weeks ago- my heart literally stopped as the lovely glass bottle made impact on the bathroom floor, shattering bits of glass and $45 worth of foundation over the tile and myself. Haven’t worn foundation since since as I don’t have the money to replace it and nothing else gives the finish I like. :/ They need to make those containers out of steel!
How do you use alcohol to re-press it?
Crush it up completely, then pour a little alcohol so that you can make it a slush, then press down with wax paper and a quarter to push it all together.
Cry very loudly, on the inside… So that no one thinks I’m crazy. LOL…
After I swear at it lol, I try my best to salvage it, or put it in a sandwich bag and save it for when I need to customize makeup.
i have only ever broken a blush from Rimmel. i used the alcohol method to put it back together. oh and a physician’s formula retractable eye liner. that on i had to tuck back in and was careful when i twisted it up.