My Z Palette ft. Sleek

Hello everyone,  apologies for the second palette post in a row but I wanted
to share another way to make your own custom palette and although it was a bit
of a faff it’s been so worth it! I LOVE Sleek eyeshadow palettes, they are some
of the best on the market and worth a lot more than the £7.99
price tag. The Ultra Mattes palette was the first ever eyeshadow palette I got
from my 17th birthday and since then my collection has rapidly grown, including
a few beautiful limited edition palettes. The only problem I have
with them is they all look the same from the outside, so when stored away and
stacked neatly its hard to distinguish one from the other – meaning that unless
its a special occasion I rarely reach for them. They just weren’t getting enough
love, so when I saw that my lovely fellow ethical blogger (and talented MUA)
Tamanna
had made her own custom Z palette I couldn’t help but be inspired to do
the same!

 I bought my Z Palette from Lovemakeup for £15.99 (I’m sure there was some sort
of discount code I used though) and you can get the same thing from beautybay for £15.95. What is so appealing about
these palettes are the clear window making it easy to see exactly what is
inside, as well as the magnetic backing. You can purchase shadows from MUG and
Inglot and slot them in here with ease, as well as move them about. The magnetic
lid is very sturdy and keeps products safe and protected. Also you can pretty
much put ANYTHING that is in a pan in here. I have seen the coolest wet’n’wild
collections in Z palettes, in a rainbow order as well as blushers and bronzers
that have been depotted. This saves space and allows a lot of your collection to
be condensed into one place meaning you will actually get a lot more use out of
it! If I spot any random sales from beautybay I’ll be picking some more up to
hopefully make a blusher palette too.

The issue with Sleek palettes is that the pans are not magnetic, meaning
you’ll have to stick a bit of magnet sticker onto each pan. A long and slightly
annoying process to say the least but the Z palettes come with plenty of
magnetic stickers making it worth the price. (I ended up cutting the stickers in
halves, making things even more tedious but I got there in the end). I won’t be
explaining how I went about depotting the eyeshadows, as you can read how to in
Tamanna’s post here which is very useful ^_^

However I’ll offer you two bits of advice:
1. Be patient, especially when trying to get the black packaging off it takes
ages and can be a little painful too ._.
2. It’s a messy process, so wear old clothes and cover surfaces well.

You have to be really really careful when trying to depot and it’s almost
unavoidable to smash a couple of shadows in the process. I ended up fixing a
couple with surgical spirit (an alternative to rubbing alcohol) but also I
chucked out duplicates, as most sleek palettes come with a black shadow and I
only needed one. Although the fixed shadows don’t look as good, like that beautiful purple/maroon shade on the right, they still work just as well. I also have in the top right corner a bronzer sample from
Birchbox, which luckily is already in a magnetic pan. That shade is a brilliant transition colour for the crease (Lord and Berry – Sunny).

Since making this palette, I have used the shadows over and over again. It’s
so useful having a couple of palettes combined together and being able to order
the shades in their colour families. Sleek eyeshadows are very pigmented and
blend together easily. A little goes a long way and having so many shades in one
place means I really do use them a tonne more! In this palette I have at (most
of the shadows from) the Au Natural Palette, the Oh So Special Palette –
reviewed here, the Vintage Romance Palette and a few
of the shadows from the Ultra Mattes 2 palette.

I highly highly recommend getting your hands on a Z palette if you have a
couple of eyeshadow palettes that you just don’t seem to reach for enough, or if
you have lots of singles/duos. Putting them in one palette will mean you are
definitely going to be using them more! Plus its like your own unique custom
palette, without spending a tonne on buying new shadows ^_^