Pictured from left to right: All That Glitters, Naked Lunch, Sable, Tempting, Woodwinked, Satin Taupe, Bronze, Handwritten, Nylon, Amber Lights, Trax, Carbon.

 Building a Mac palette was something that just made sense to me. I had a lot of Mac eyeshadows, both single and in separate containers, and I was often having to hunt around for my favourites. Now they're all in one easy to reach space. What's also great about the new palettes is that they are magnetic. The inserts housing your eyeshadows can be removed so you can swap eyeshadows around and also take them out and move them to a quad for traveling. Unlike other readymade eyeshadow palettes, this can be completely built by you which I think is one of my favourite parts. All but one of these colours was chosen myself. On a side note this eyeshadow collection has taken me four years to build up and I highly recommend you gather colours together slowly, but more on that later.

Here's my suggestions on building your own Mac palette and how to depot eyeshadows from Mac..

I'm not going to go into great detail about my eyeshadows because I've already written about them here and here. Since those posts I have picked up Sable and Carbon* so if you'd like to see reviews on either of those let me know. 

One thing I would highly recommend is to select colours that suit you and you know you'd wear often. In the past I have bought matte purple and shimmery pink eyeshadows only to pass them on to other people further down the track. If you're unsure, ask one of the Mac artists or watch some of your favourite Beauty YouTuber's videos for inspiration. Tanya often uses Mac eyeshadows and will point out what sort of skintones and eye colours they'd work for, very useful.

 A highlight shade, crease colour and a shade that you can sweep over the lids are good to get started with. Handwritten, the shade in the centre of the second row above is great as a crease colour. All That Glitters and Naked Lunch, top row are perfect for simple washes of colour. 

If you're putting together a palette, use an organisational system that will work for you. I attempted to colour coordinate my eyeshadows originally but in the end I placed the colours I use most in the top row and then sorted the rest where I wanted them. To make things even easier you could use a label maker and label the lids so you know which shade is which, like the Nouvelle ladies did.

You may already have some Mac eyeshadows to depot, as I did. The guide Nouvelle Daily published explains how to depot your eyeshadows or blush from Mac perfectly and it's what I followed. There are YouTube videos too but I preferred reading instructions. 

I have never depotted makeup before and the whole process took me about an hour. When you're removing the eyeshadow insert do it slowly and carefully. You can't see from the photos but I managed to dent Carbon because I wasn't being careful enough. 

When you're removing your eyeshadows after they've been heated by your hair straightener be careful! The metal pans get very hot. You'll need to leave them to cool for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before you can pick them up to place in your palette. You may find there's still some glue left on the underside of the pans. I used rosehip oil on a cotton pad to clean away the glue left behind. 

So that pretty much covers it. If you have any more questions about building a Mac palette feel free to leave them below or tweet me and I'll answer them for you.

*I hope everyone's had a great weekend. My assignments start up this week so I'm going to be busy tending to those. Over the weekend I wrote about Mamma Mia on nzgirl so go have a read of that. If you're in Auckland I highly recommend you head along to support our local talent and musical theatre scene-oh and have a good night out of course! x

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