How TO: MAC Eye shadow Palette Organization AND Swatches GALORE!

        As I have blogged about before, I was planning on having two MAC Pro Palettes; one filled with just colors, the other just neutrals. Since this is quite an expensive goal, I have been purchasing one or two eye shadows every now and then. I'm probably most proud about this part of my makeup collection, then any other part, because not only did it take a significant amount of time and money, it's custom to ME.

Color Eyeshadow SWATCHES with Too Faced Shadow Insurance Applied beforehand.

Color Eyeshadow Swatches. As you can see the colors are not as strong when they don't have a primer below!

        Today, before work I was tossing around the idea of doing some swatches of my MAC shadows and figured most makeup fans/geeks love looking at swatches as if it was pron...drooling over the vast variety of colors, shimmer and pigmentation. Not only are they aesthetically pleasing, swatches serve as a guide to which colors are worth the dough. To me, if a shadow has a good color payoff.. then it's of higher quality then those shadows who are very sheer and have little to no pigmentation at all.

  
 Organization:

        As for organization of my palettes, I broke them up into two separate palettes as you all know.  I took a sheet of lined paper and cut it to fit just inside of  my palette. I drew lines to create 15 boxes ( 3 throws of 5 columns). I wrote the name, type and whether the eyeshadow was part of the permanent collection ( P) or if it was in a collection and if it was, I wrote the name of the collection and the year. I bought a strip of magnets with a stick back so after I depoted the eye shadows out of the containers, I could just stick the sticky side to the eye shadow pan, and the magnetic side would stick to the metal palette. Makes the eye shadows pretty easy to get out, but be careful they're still fragile and fall out a bit easier than you'd think!

     As you can see, these sheets help keep my eye shadows organized and help me remember which year and collection they came from! I just have these taped to the top part of the inside of the palette. Let me know any thoughts, comments, or questions. :]

My MAC Eyeshadow Palette Journey Part One

       Earlier this year I kick started my MAC addiction by purchasing an empty pro palette so when I get new eye shadows, I can depot them, and put them in this palette, making them more accessible and convenient. If you're serious about your makeup addiction, especially with MAC, I highly suggest you invest $16 in an empty MAC palette (or other brand palette such as the Z-Palette or UNII Palette) to better organize your expensive collection.                 
 


 
       My goal with the whole depoting/palette deal was to get 2 full MAC 15 spot palettes, one with just neutrals and the other with just colors. So far, I have collected 9 neutrals and 6 colorful eyeshadows all from a variety of venues. I've purchased shadows from past collections at the CCO (Cosmetic Company Outlet) which my CCO is located in an Off the 5th-Saks 5th Avenue store in Great Lakes Crossing Mall, in Michigan. I've also purchased just a pan from online (along with the empty palettes). The rest of the colors I've just purchased at a MAC counter in my local Macy's or Nordstrom's. :]

My MAC Eye Shadow Colors with name, type of eyeshadow, and collection

I took the other colors out so when my 2nd palette comes in the mail, I could organize them. This one I tried removing it too many times..and it didn't take so well. So now it's staying there.

    The eye shadows with red asterisks were purchased at the CCO.  The blue asterisk was the eye shadow purchased online in pan form. The rest of the eye shadows were purchased at the MAC counter in my local Macy's or Nordstrom's. I don't purchase all eye shadows at once. I started a little over a year ago, buying one or two eye shadows here and there eventually making it to where I stand now with 15 eye shadows amongst other MAC products I've purchased.

      Oh and once you depot the eye shadows, do NOT throw away the plastic case they come in! You can return them without the pan to any MAC counter for the Back 2 MAC program and with 6 containers (you can return other empty plastic containers like brush cleanser bottles, lip stick bullets, lip glass containers, etc.) and get a FREE full size lipstick of your choice. It's so simple! You're recycling and getting a  free product in return!