I've been familiar with Coastal Scents for years, and I cant believe I had never made an order with them before! I'm not really interested in pre-made palettes, but I was interested in their loose mica pigments and glitter. I bought 4 pigments (Inter Gold Sparks, Chocolate Mousse, Illusion Luxury Gold, and Antique Silver), 3 glitters (Ocean Blue, Tinsle, and Fairy Dust), a Black Oxide powder, and some Cosmetic Microspheres filler powder. I was also sent Ruby Mica Powder as a free sample. All of these are in sample sizes, but you are given more than enough to play with. Now, you can certainly put these into jars and use them loose, but I am a very crafty person, and I decided that I wanted to press mine and put them in my MAC palette, so I also bought 8 26mm pans. I also bought 2 samples of their Undercover HD liquid foundation in ST-01, which I've wanted to try for a few years now. They also sent me a mini kabuki brush, but it's a bit scratchy so I don't know if I'll keep it or not.
I'm kind of mad at myself for not taking pictures of the process, but I guess that since it was my first time trying this, it might be best to do that next time. You can see now what my finished palette now looks like! For some of these, I just took the pigment and pressed them as they were, like the Inter Gold Sparks and the Illusion Luxury Gold. But I bought some of these specifically to make a certain color I have been searching for. I have been looking for a color that is similar to Smut, with a texture like Satin Taupe. I'm happy to say that I accomplished just that by mixing Chocolate Mousse with the Antique Silver, darkening the color with the Black Oxide, then creating the silky texture with the Cosmetic Microspheres. It's just what I wanted! Then I made the one called Antique Ocean buy mixing the Antique Silver with the Ocean Blue Glitter. This one is my least favorite, and I might end up crushing it and making something different. I'll know better once I play with it a bit. To press all of these shadows, I mixed 1 part pure Glycerin to 3 parts Isopropyl Alcohol. Coastal Scents sells a pressing medium, but I already had these ingredients at home.
This is a really fun and affordable way of refreshing your makeup collection. Now that I know how to do it, I probably wont be spending $15 on an eyeshadow. If you think arts and craft projects are fun, or if you're looking for a specific shadow, then you might want to give pressing shadows a try!
