Pigment Pressing Tutorial (Pictureless except for results)

What you will need:
Eyedropper
Alcohol
Eyeshadow pans
Safety and/or Bobby pins
Small bowl/container for the Alcohol
1/4 teaspoon measure (Metal works best, but plastic will do)

What to do:
1. Get your e/s pans. I went to Claire's and got 15 eyeshadows for about $8. Since they weren't all that great I just scraped them out with a safety pin. Make sure to wash/dry them too! To get them out I just used my hair straightener until the plastic softened enough for me to poke a safety pin through.
2. Once the pans are dry, take the teaspoon and scoop or some pigment. Be very careful when you put the pigment into the pan, it can spill out. If it spills in large amounts, take your safety pin and just brush it back into the pan. Don't put a lot in though, just enough so that it will cover the entire bottom of the pan.
3. Take your alcohol and put it into the smaller container. Then take the eyedropper and put the alcohol into the pan. Stir the mixture (with a safety or bobby pink) until the mixture has a smooth liquid-y texture.
4. Keep adding pigment/alcohol until you think its fairly full. Then just pick up and drop the pan from a height of about a half inch until the top is smooth.
5. Let the pan dry. In about 2-4 hours it will be dry enough to press. You can tell that it is ok to press if the pigment still feels damp, but is not like a mousse. I can't describe this very well but it's kind of like a very firm sponge? If that makes any sense.
6. Take a piece of fabric, an old t-shirt/tiny piece of cotton jersey, or something similar. Place the fabric over the pan and then place a quarter on top. Push down as hard as you can to press the pigment. Lift up the fabric and voila! A pressed pigment.
7. Now let the pigment dry some more. It will be dry enough for use when it no longer smells of alcohol. You can also tell if you put the pan into a quad and there is no fog from the evaporated alcohol when it remains closed for a few hours.

Sorry there were no pictures from this tutorial, I will update it if I press more pigments. But one of the funnest thing about pressing pigments is that you can mix them =D It's sooo much fun! Plus it makes them easier to use, atleast for me. Anyway, here are my most recent results. Originally I pressed some right into a quad and a milani pot, but that
was pretty inconvenient so I repressed them into pans. Now I can rearrange the colors and everything too. HTH =)

Pictures






P.S. Let me know if you want swatches or anything. I'm happy to do them, I just didn't want to do them all at once.

Very very nice!!!

Question: does pressing the pigments ever change the original color? Or does it stay true? What about the intensity? Thx!!

^I find I get better color payoff, but only because everything is in one piece. I just can't work with the loose pigments that well =/ But the color payoff is pretty much the same. Some people had some problems with Pinked Mauve changing color to a darker purple, but mine only changed a little bit. It still looks the same when used though.

what percent alcohol did you use? i bought a couple of things to do my pigment pressing, but i've heard about two different kinds.

yes, swatches would be nice. i really like and would want to see a swatch of the azreal blue+golders green+steel blue.

thanks

I used 70% alcohol.

Here's a swatch, it's over Sea Me s/s.



As always, it's more vibrant irl. I'm an NW20 if that helps.

Doesn't alcohol sting your eyes? I've always hesitated doing these pressings because I don't want it to sting.

__________________

yeh im also wary of it in case it stings coz i have sensitive eyes

Nope =) When the pigment is dry, there is no alcohol left. It evaporates.

oh ok cool, totally dumb question where can you get the alcohol from??

A pharmacy or drugstore I think.

__________________

oh ok thank you! im going to try this

Thanks! I've never really thought about pressing pigments until I saw how nice yours came out. I don't know how I feel about going to get shadows and then dumping them out. Is there anything else I can use to press pigments in?

This is freakin cool! I'm gonna steal my sister's pigments to do this in case I screw up. Hahahaha.

WOW! Thanks. I'll try this soon.

__________________
Just another teenager addicted to MAC

may i know where to get empty pan??