Colour Coded Beauty: Sugarpill Limited Edition DISASTER …. well almost :P

Could you imagine finding out that one of your favourite brands put out an awesome limited edition product, so you jump through all kinds of hoops and shell out big bucks for it, only to open your package and find that it was completely ruined???? Well, we couldn't either but that's exactly what happened to us.
Okay rewind to a few weeks ago, sometime near the end of January …
Anyone who knows anything about Sugarpill Cosmetics knows that they have some of the most pigmented MATTE eyeshadows around. So when we heard that they were producing a palette of their 3 popular quads combined, there was no question that we needed it in our lives.
The problem...? They were only available at IMATS in California and we would not be there. Le sigh... What were we to do? Hmmm think, think, THINK! … Luckily we did know someone who was travelling … silver lining perhaps?
YES!!! Lashawn was able to arrange for her significant other to get the palette and bring it back for us when he travelled to the US! Now the waiting began …
and more waiting …
Finally, it arrived.

Now, we could tell from the bag that something had gone terribly wrong but we were hoping against hope that it would be fine. Maybe only one was broken? Worse case scenario 2 or 3? Ummm 4 or 5? We decided to open it together. Deep breath, here goes... 1 2 3 4... 7??? 7 out of 12 were broken!!! Really??? Le sigh again. What a quandary!
Let's weigh our options:
1) Throw out our palette of broken dreams and cry until our eyes ran out of water!
2) Duck tape the quads we had together and pretend it was the limited edition autobot palette that transformed into quads when necessary!
3) Remove the broken ones and fix them!
Hmm... could they even be fixed? Well we knew that you can press your own pigments so it had to be possible to fix broken pots. Right? Only one way to find out.
And off to youtube I went.
What I used:
Plastic wrap
Rubbing Alcohol (undiluted)
Small spoon and a few toothpicks
Bounty tissue (any absorbant tissue should be fine)
A quarter (a larger coin would have been easier but alas, our dollar isn’t circular)
Old newspaper
First, I laid the newspaper on the table and used a large powder brush to get rid of the useless shadow in the palette (all of the broken colours had mixed together).

Then, I used the spoon to scoop out each colour, placing the pigments in their own square of plastic wrap.

Using a heavy object, an ornament in this case, I crushed each shadow and tied off each individually. One by one, I mixed enough alcohol into each shadow until I achieved the consistency of cake batter.

Using my nifty spoon, I put each eyeshadow into their respective pots, used a toothpick to get out any air bubbles, smoothed them down with the back of the spoon and let them sit for a few minutes.

Then, I carefully placed the tissue over each pot and used the quarter to press the alcohol out, making sure to pay close attention to pressing the shadow into the sides of the pan (if the shadow isn't pressed properly, it will come away from the pan and crack).