What To Do With Your Old Lipsticks

Ever since our house got flooded, and all of our belongings got shifted around and dug up, I am finding all sorts of treasures and then all sorts of things that are trash!!  

But of course when it comes to makeup items, I have a hard time trashing ANYTHING!!

I always think, "Weeell, I should keep that dark muddy brown lipstick bc maybe that color will come back in style??"  Ha!! Well, dark brown maybe not, but I have noticed how many almost worn down almost gone lipstick shades that I have that I know I love, but the tubes are taking up too much space.  It is time for a clean out and to make the best use of my space!!

So I had the best idea on how to save my beloved lipstick colors while also creating more space in my bathroom drawers.

What you need:

1.  A plastic watercolor palette from a hobby/art store place like Michaels or Hobby Lobby (Mine is from Michaels and was about $18).  Make sure it has a cover or lid so that you can keep the lip colors from drying out and that it has multiple small sections for you to put multiple colors in.  I like this one bc it also has two large spots I can mix different shades in in the center. Check out very top photo above for inside looksy.

2.  A small knife or something to dig the old lipstick out of the tube then to apply/squish into the sections in the palette.

3.  A lip brush and your favorite clear lip gloss.  The easiest and cleanest way for me to use these left over colors is with a lip brush- mine is from Stila ($24).  I also liked adding a small clear lip gloss by Too Faced - Mirror Mirror  ($16) -that I can't wear alone (bc my lips are super pale and I always need a hint of color) to all of my favorite lipsticks to make them a bit more sheer.

4.  Your finger- use your fingers to apply these lipsticks as blush too!!!   I was heading out to get my kids from school and was already using my new lip gloss I created from the palette, when I decided to try one of the other lipsticks from my palette as a blush.

And look how fabulous this turned out!! 

Just the right amount of shimmer and color for a casual look.  

So just when you thought you were going to have to toss that stubby leftover favorite lipstick color- think again!!! Save it, and scrape it into a new container.  And use it two ways- for lips and cheeks!