My (Current) Custom Palettes

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you probably know how much I love to depot eyeshadows and make custom palettes. One of the reasons I'm not the biggest fan of the current marketing trend of trying to convince consumers to buy more and more is because it is all based on novelty. And, as we all know, novelty wears off pretty quick. But with custom palettes, novelty doesn't matter. Because once that wears off, I can just dismantle the old palette and make a new one. 

I'm often in flux with my custom palettes. I'll think I've finally made a palette that can be a "permanent" fixture in my collection, but then that all goes out the window when a new palette comes out that I want to dupe or I find some other source of inspiration.

Case in point: My Schitt's Creek palette, which I talked about in my last post:

As much as I loved this palette, I felt like it was still a bit too warm to really feel like the show and be an ideal cool-toned palette. I had always wanted to include some smoky, cool shades, but I just didn't have any in my collection. So, I actually purchased some new singles recently precisely to fill this void. 

And here is my new Schitt's Creek palette:

To say that I love this new version of the palette is an understatement. I think it is such a perfect cool-toned palette, and had something like this been created by a brand, I absolutely would have purchased it. But, instead of spending $50 – $130, this palette is mostly repurposed from shadows I already owned. 

I've updated/changed all of my custom palettes, so I thought it could be fun to share where my custom palettes currently stand (knowing that these configurations are only ever temporary).

Longtime readers will also know how much I loved my duped/reimagined Too Faced Peachy Mattes palette:

This was a favorite palette for a long time, but I didn't use it much last year. This was largely because I wasn't as interested in creating pink eyeshadow looks (I might have burnt myself out with that in 2017) and because it was mainly a companion palette, and I just don't reach for those very often. 

So, I changed/upgraded it:

I've included some of my favorite shimmer shadows to use with the "peachy" mattes and removed the shades that didn't get as much use from me. I think this now has a really great balance of finishes and shades, and it has reinvigorated my desire to use it. 

I'm still loving my duped Emily Edit: The Wants palette:

I've slightly altered the color scheme, but not in any considerable way. My feelings on the original palette by Makeup Revolution have not changed (it was my biggest fail of the entire year), and neither has my love of Emily's color selection. I still think she curated a fantastic color scheme, and I'm so glad that my collection could mostly duplicate the shades.

My next custom palette contains most of my duochrome shadows:

And I've incorporated other complementary shades. I love looking at so many duochromes all in one place, and I quite like the selection of matte shadows as well. I think this has a really fun color scheme while still being mostly neutral. 

My final palette was inspired by the new Coloured Raine Safari palette:

It includes a dupe of this palette as well as an expansion of the color scheme:

The Safari dupe can be found in the first three columns, excluding the fourth row. I was finally brave enough to depot my beloved Viseart Dark Matte palette, and I couldn't be happier that I did. Dark Matte was the one Viseart palette I could never bring myself to depot, but, much like my duped Peachy Matte palette, I found that I wasn't using it because it wasn't depotted. I cannot express how excited I am about this custom palette. Much like my Schitt's Creek palette, if this was a palette a brand would have created, I would have purchased it. To me, this palette feels unique, which is hard to do when the makeup community is as saturated as it is. But I love the earth tones in this palette, and I find it quite inspiring. What's even more exciting is that this palette gives me ALL the excitement of a new purchase, but these are all shadows I've owned for a while. On top of that, I recently purchased a new palette, and I haven't even used it yet because this one has been too exciting. 

So, that's it for this post. I just wanted to show my "new" custom palettes. In a way, I suppose this is like a haul, because all of these feel like new products to me, but it's more of a "shop my collection" post. I know depotting isn't for everyone, and there are certainly palettes that I would never depot (like Pat McGrath Mothership IV, my Natasha Denona palettes, and BH Cosmetics Zodiac), but when you start to look at shades in a palette as colors instead of part of the whole of a palette, it really opens up quite a bit of creative freedom. 

Hopefully my "new" custom palettes will inspire you to look into your own collections if you're feeling bored or stagnant instead of buying something new. 

Makeup Rehab and Recent Declutters

Looking at the above photo, which has the three palettes I recently decluttered from my collection, it honestly doesn't look like much. It's just three palettes. And that's funny because getting rid of these three palettes has felt like an immense feat, like I've cleaned out so much of my collection. 

When I started this blog, I had close to 30 large eyeshadow palettes. That wasn't counting smaller palettes or quads. I believe I successfully completed four months of my one week, one palette series, which means that I got through about 16 of those palettes. Several of my palettes were what I considered "companion" palettes, and I left them out of that project. 

Now, I am happy to say that, including custom palettes, I have 12 large eyeshadow palettes. Excluding custom palettes, I have 7 large eyeshadow palettes. I have 9 smaller palettes/quads/Melt Stacks. 

Of the large eyeshadow palettes that are not custom:

• 1 is the Urban Decay Electric palette, which I consider a "special" palette that isn't really in the daily rotation 
• 2 are companion palettes (Viseart Dark Matte and Kat Von D Pastel Goth)
• 1 is a travel palette (Tartelette in Bloom)
• 1 is a sentimental one (Tarte Rainforest of the Sea)

So, considering all of that, outside of the custom palettes, the large eyeshadow palettes that I own that are "regulars" are:

• Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts
• Viseart Bijoux Royale 

And so I guess that's why, even though the numbers are still high, it doesn't really feel all that high to me. 

Even in my smaller palette/quads:

• 1 is the Melt Lovesick Stack, which I may end up decluttering
• 2 are companion (Melt Rust Stack and Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye quad in Plum)
• 1 is only for inner corner highlighting 
• 1 is a travel palette 
• 1 is a custom palette with bight colors, which I also consider a "special" occasion palette

Which leaves:

• Milani Earthly Elements (slightly altered by me)
• 2 Tom Ford quads

I know that all of that sounds high maintenance, and sure, I'll take that. But this is what works for me. I like to have companion palettes, I like to have travel palettes, and I like to have those bright palettes that I don't use all the time. 

Now, I also have a large collection of single shadows, so I am by no means saying that I have a small makeup collection, but I feel I am actually getting close to an ideal collection for me. And that's what I think sometimes gets lost in the "makeup rehab" community. Sometimes I think people take the urge to buy and instead apply that to decluttering or panning. And then those practices can get obsessive as well. Now, I am certainly a fan of decluttering and using up products, but I do think that it's more important to work through why the impulse to buy is there and to evaluate your collection over a long period of time. 

Some people are happiest with an enormous collection with drawers and drawers of palettes. Some people are happy with a minimal collection or two eyeshadows. And some people, like me, are happy with an admittedly large collection that is incredibly curated. And as I say that, I still think there is room for improvement and downsizing in my collection. But several months ago, I thought I had gotten to a healthy place. And I have decluttered more than 10 palettes since then. I think decluttering is a process. But I really think it's worth the time to evaluate your collection and really figure out what you personally need and what works best for you. 

So, here are the three latest declutters in my collection. 

Viseart Boheme Dream:

I spoke about this in my Weekend Looks post this week, so I won't go on too much here. Essentially, this is a great palette that I just wasn't using. I don't need light, medium, and dark versions of green, pink, and blue, and I already have the Electric Palette and the custom smaller palette with colors. I also have all of these neutral colors elsewhere in my collection. So, this palette was just sitting in my collection making me feel guilty for not using it. I don't need it, so out it goes. 

MAC C'Est Chic:

I've really enjoyed this palette and found it challenging to declutter. This was actually a birthday gift to myself last year, and that kind of thing adds a sentiment that makes this hard to get rid of. Honestly, that entire bottom row will get no use from me. All of the lighter shadows lack pigmentation, and the main colors that I used I have elsewhere in my collection. So, out it goes. 

Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye:

This is admittedly cheating as I kept my favorite four shadows in this palette. I've mentioned often that the Melt Rust Stack is now my absolute favorite companion palette and that it has essentially replaced this palette. And that's true. Even still, there were still some warm (and cool) shadows that I wanted to keep. The white shadow that is in the cool (middle) quad is one of my favorite brow bone shadows of all time, so I knew I wanted to keep that. And the large cool and warm shadows and the orange shadow in the warm quad were the main reasons that I bought this palette. And because of that, I figured I might as well keep them. I don't need the rest of the palette, I just want what I like. And what's interesting is that when I look at the above palette, without these four shadows, this palette looks so boring to me! Not only that, it looks incredibly repetitive. 

I didn't have any room in any of my custom palettes, so I needed to declutter a bit more. Here was what this custom palette used to look like:

And this is what it looks like now:

(The round shadow that is no longer in this palette is Make Up For Ever Pearl. Don't worry, I didn't get rid of it. It has been moved into another palette.)

What I find amusing about this is that now I only have 8 shadows left from both Viseart Paris Nudes and Sultry Muse. And maybe all of these colors just came out of one of those palettes and I have unknowingly decluttering the other palette shadow by shadow. Either way, I find it funny that these palettes I once loved so much have been reduced to just 8 shadows. I'll also mention that this is my least favorite of all of my custom palettes, and I would not be surprised at all if I decluttered this entire thing in the future. But for now, it stays. 

So ultimately, while I am only getting rid of three palettes, this declutter has freed up a lot of physical space in my collection and has made me feel a bit freed up in my mental space as it relates to my collection as well. 

One Week, One Palette: Custom MAC, Makeup Geek, Make Up For Ever, and Morphe Palette

This is a project that I've wanted to start for a long time but never actually took the plunge. And that is a one week, one palette challenge. 

The general idea is that I will use one of my palettes for a week, pulling in other shadows as needed, and do a different look each day. 

I have a significant number of eyeshadow palettes, and I would like to make sure that I am not only rotating through all of them, but that I am also not doing the same look each time I use them. 

To start, I wanted to use one of my favorite but least used palettes, my custom palette. This has MAC, Makeup Geek (MUF), and Anastasia Beverly Hills (ABH) single shadows as well as depotted shadows from the Make Up For Ever (MUFE) Artist Palette Volume 1 and the Morphe 35T palette. 

My custom palette is a doubled-sided MAC palette with inserts. It holds 30 shadows.

I am not a fan on the look of Z-Palettes, especially with circle pans, as they don't look as uniform as I would like. Also (as you can tell), I am very messy with my shadows, and the mess was amplified within the Z-Palettes. I therefore ditched all my Z-Palettes and decided to go with the MAC palette with inserts. 

The palette is very heavy and will only magnetize MAC shadows, so magnets were needed with all the other shadows. 

The Morphe shadows in this palette (depotted from the 35T) do not have names, so I have just listed them numerically in my palette. 

The shadows are:

Top, from left: MUFE Golden Beige, MUG Cosmopolitan, MUG Mai Tai, Morphe 35T shadow 1, MUG Typhoon

Middle: MUG Grandstand, MUG Flamethrower, Morphe 35T shadow 2, Morphe 35T shadow 3, Morphe 35T shadow 4

Bottom: MUG Phantom, MUG Masquerade, MUG Caitlin Rose, Morphe 35T shadow 5, Morphe 35T shadow 6

Top, from left: MUG Peach Smoothie, MUG Creme Brule, MUG Cupcake, MUG Cocoa Bear, MUG Bitten

Middle: MAC Amber Lights, MAC Cranberry, MAC Woodwinked, MAC Coppering, Morphe 35T shadow 7

Bottom: ABH Pink Champagne, MUFE Taupe Platinum, MUFE Pink Granite, MUFE Iced Brown, MUFE Celestial Earth

Twenty-five of the shadows in here have a shimmer or metallic finish, and five have matte finishes. 

Below are five of the looks I did last week. Please note: this was my first time ever attempting to take pictures of my eye or my eye makeup. Please bear with me as I learn my camera and lighting more and can take better pictures.  

Please also note: I used MUFE Pearl on the inner corner and Kat Von D Laetus (from Shade and Light Eye) on my brow bone every day. 

Look 1:

Morphe 35T shadow 7 on lid, MUG Cupcake and MUG Peach Smoothie blended in the crease, and MUG Bitten lightly blended in the outer corner and into the crease. Morphe shadow 7 on the lower lash line. 

Look 2:

MAC Coppering on the lid, MUG Creme Brule and MUG Cocoa Bear blended in the crease, and MUG Bitten blended in the outer corner and into the crease. MUG Bitten on the lower lash line. 

Look 3:

MAC Cranberry on the lid, MUG Cupcake in the crease, and MUG Bitten blended on the outer corner and blended into the crease. MAC Cranberry on the lower lash line. 

Look 4:

Morphe shadow 2 on the lid, MUG Peach Smoothie, MUG Creme Brule, and MUG Cocoa Bear blended into the crease, and MUFE Celestial Earth padded onto the outer corner. Morphe shadow 2 and MUFE Celestial Earth on the lower lash line. 

Look 5:

MUG Flamethrower on the lid, MUG Creme Brule and MUG Cocoa Bear blended in the crease, and MUG Bitten blended on the outer corner and into the crease. MUG Bitten on the lower lash line.

I absolutely loved using this palette all week. I'm actually pretty bummed to have to move onto another palette this week, and I'll be using one of my favorites. 

Since my custom palette has so few matte shadows, my crease options were not all that varied, but I was very okay with that. I was surprised to find that I did two berry and two orange looks throughout the week, but I think those colors pair so nicely with Makeup Geek Bitten, which is one of my all-time favorite eyeshadows. 

My custom palette was easily my least used in my entire collection, and that always made me sad because I knew all the colors in there were incredible. And they are. I think since the palette is so big and heavy, it was a deterrent for me as my other palettes are generally easier to grab for. 

I also get into a strange "rut" if you will of using one palette one day and then moving on to something else the next day just so I always use something new. But doing that has never really allowed me to really fall for a palette the way I have my custom palette this week. 

And this should be a palette I fall for—absolutely—as I have chosen each shadow in it. In a lot of ways, I feel like this palette is close to everything I could ever need. It's very warm-toned, which I love, and is filled with berry, bronze, and orange shades that really complement my skin tone and eye color. 

Getting to use this palette all week really did curb any craving I've had for new eyeshadow palettes that are being launched seemingly daily. I have only chosen shadows of exceptional quality in my custom palette, so seeing palettes lack pigmentation and that are difficult to blend really doesn't excite me. 

I couldn't be more thrilled to have started this project and see where it goes from here. Maybe I'll even find some palettes that I'm able to declutter? More than anything, I'm excited to get to spend time falling for things already in my collection instead of being lured in by something new.