Lip palette DIY

I've always been a fan of a palette. When it comes to lip palettes, they don't sell well in retail and for good reason. The average person wants to grab a lip color in the morning and apply it- not brush it on from a palette where they have to make too many decisions. And when applying my own makeup in the morning I adhere to this concept. Don't get me wrong: I usually apply a lip stain and then a gloss, so it's not exactly a low maintenance approach.

When it comes to makeup artistry, I have a completely opposite approach. I like to stare into a palette and chunk out a bit of one color and a bit of another (and another and another) to achieve the bestest color I can for any individual. What better way to do this than to make a custom palette?

Too faced had a coolest lip palette a few years ago as a limited edition that was called "Box of Chocolates" and featured about 24 deep welled lip colors that were a wide range of shades. I liked that it had a decent size of each color, so you could potentially chunk some out into a touch-up lip jar (provided for every person in the bridal party). But I wasn't doing weddings much at the time and it wasn't where my head was at....coulda, shoulda, woulda.

So now I have to come up with a clever(er) way to get that great big deep well with lots of choices of colors. Hence, the custom palette. Purchasing an empty palette from a company such as Japonesque with the deep wells will run you about $40 and it still doesn't provide deep enough to chunk out some for others.

One of my makeup artist friends (Allison, hello there) found a fun solution at a craft store: A bead organizer. She can fit about 2 lipsticks worth in each little container in this organizer. This probably ran about $15 and is the size of a phonebook. A little more cumbersome than I want to fit in my kit, which is expanding at a ridiculous rate.

Then, I found the pill separater. You can get the little Mon-Sun containers, all separate and click closed. Perfect. THEN, I found the mother of all pill separaters (after already making 2 smaller palettes): It has room for taking pills 4 times/day, meaning 28 compartments. I picked one up at the Kroger Pharmacy counter area for a whopping $5! Genius. And if I were a more orgaized or particular person I would've labeled each compartment with colors. It actually started off that way and then I messed up/gave up. I'm excited to use my new HUGE variety of colors on a wedding today. And probably still blend 4 colors to achive the desired shade.

I still have my default bag of long wearing lip colors, lip liners, stains etc. And one bag of assorted glosses. But now all of my regular lip sticks and lip creams are compiled into pill separaters.

Good night makeup fans and friends,
Joy