Lipstick Week: Japonesque 35-Well PRO Lipstick Palette

You're not a true-blue lipstick junkie unless you have the Japonesque 35-Well PRO Lipstick Palette (P1,450 at Digital Traincase). Okay, okay, I'm only half-kidding, but you have to admit that this is such a cool thing to have. Even Lisa Eldridge keeps a few of these! 

So what is it, really? It's a classy black box that has space for 35 lipsticks. It can also be used to store cream foundation if you wish, which makes it incredibly useful if you're a makeup artist. The case and mold is made of a thin, lightweight plastic, and is closed by a silver clasp.

I spent a whole morning selecting and depotting the 35 lipsticks that I wanted to put in this baby. It was a fun activity, albeit rather messy in the end! I used up a whole pack of tissues and dozens of cotton buds to get the job done! There are two ways to go about it: one is to melt the lipstick using a microwave or candle. Pour when a little cool, then let the lipsticks harden in the mold.

The other method is to simply decapitate the lipsticks with a knife and then pat them down on the palette. This is what I did! Someone on Instagram recommended that I melt the lipsticks on the palette itself by blow drying them (stay with me!), and I did that, but I ended up melting one corner of this plastic box. The box is rather thin and not all that hefty, so it's extremely sensitive to heat. Do not blow-dry it or place too-hot melted lipstick in it!

It's pretty straightforward but I assure you, it's time consuming! I wanted to make a tutorial but my desk AND upper body was positively full of lipstick smudges ten minutes into the endeavor. I wasted a ton of product while transferring the lipsticks, but it's alright. I mainly placed the older ones in my collection so I didn't feel too bad about it. :P 

<3

I love seeing all these pretty lipsticks in one place, but I realized belatedly that it means I won't be able to retouch during the day. Those 24 lipsticks are fully depotted so I don't have the tubes anymore while the 17 small slots only contain 2/4s of the tube. Those I can bring for retouching.

My advice is this: do not fill up your Japonesque palette to the brim, or else the lipsticks will keep on leaving marks on the white separator and mixing with the other shades. Just slice off a bit and then flatten it. I used a P50 clear acrylic spatula from Suesh.

So there you go! I lost the notebook where I wrote down the shades of all these lipsticks (BOO) but I do remember most of them. If you're interested in a particular shade, just leave your question in the comments and I'll try to reply. ;)

I'm curious, how many shades here can you guess correctly? You'll know which is which if you've been following this blog for a while, haha!