My Z Palette and Depotting LMdB Kaleidoscopes

Last night I suddenly got an urge to try depotting my Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscopes. So, whilst most people were watching the England match go to penalities, I took a small screwdriver to my makeup and hoped I wouldn't live to regret this rash decision.

The Le Métier de Beauté Kaleidoscopes come with a small hole in the back of each layer which allow you to free the eyeshadow pans without the need for a heat. Hopefully you can see from the pictures that the hole is very close to the edge of the pan. It is important to angle the tool you are using towards the centre of the pan, rather than straight up, as it is possible for it to slip straight past the edge of the pan otherwise. I first of all tried using a needle but this didn't enable me to apply enough pressure, so I switched to a thin screwdriver which was more successful.

The pans came out relatively easily and I found it best to cup my hand over the pan whilst pressing from behind, so that I could catch the eyeshadow as it popped out. Freeing the eyeshadows in this way causes no damage to the packaging and I intend to keep the kaleidoscope casing just in case I change my mind about storing the eyeshadows in a free palette.

I depotted three eyeshadow kits: Silk Road, Penelope and Le Cirque. I would have depotted Come One, Come All if I hadn't run out of space in my Z palette. The fact that the Z palette was filled so quickly made me realise just how big the Le Métier pans are. I probably should have compared them to a MAC pan for reference but the RBR refill pan that you can see on the right hand side is a very similar to a MAC pan. The square pan that you can also see on the right hand side is a depotted Shu Uemura eyeshadow.

The Z palettes have a magnetised base so there is no need to add magnetic stickers to underside of pans and refills. Sometimes you will find that eyeshadow pans are made from a non-magnetic material. I discovered that both the Shu and the pans from Le Cirque were non-magnetic so I applied the 'metal stickers' that came with the Z palette to these pans. This is where I feel the need to have a little whinge. I think it's a shame that the free palettes haven't settled on a universal system. I would like to be able to swap and change pans around across all of my palettes (MAC, Z palette and Unii palette) but this isn't possible as about a third of my pans have magnets on their base. I have no desire to start removing stickers that I have carefully applied just so that I can put them in my Z palette.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the Z palette. I don't think it is as attractive as a Unii palette and although the cardboard is sturdy, I'm not sure I'd feel safe using it for travel. Of course, the Pro Z palette does have size on its side, you can see how it compares to the MAC 15 pan palette above. The old style Unii palette remains my personal favourite. You can find an excellent comparison of the old and new style Unii palettes on Everyday Beauty.

I purchased my Pro Z palette from Cocktail Cosmetics where they cost £19.95.

Le Métier de Beauté Come One, Come All Kaleidoscope

The sun finally came out towards the end of the week so I seized the opportunity to take some photographs of my new Come One, Come All Kaleidoscope. As every good beauty blogger know, you can't play with a new item until there are pictures and I'd been itching to try these eyeshadows out.

With flash

The eyeshadow at the top of the stack is pale nude peach with shimmer. The shimmer is a little chunkier than I have have come across with other Le Métier eyeshadows and I did experience some fall out. It is still smooth to apply with good pigmentation. Ordinarily I am not good with peachy colours but this is pale enough for me to feel confident wearing it as a base colour.

What I thought was taupe actually turned out to be a silvery grey-green. It's very pretty and I believe this colour has been released before in the Splendid Frost Kaleidoscope. On my first attempt at applying these eyeshadows, I struggled to pair this grey-green with the nude peach. I have a feeling that I need to do some experimenting to get these colours to work for me. I'm keen to see how this colour will look applied on it's own to the lid.

The bottom two colours of this kaleidoscope are the same two bottom colours from the Silk Road kaleidoscope which I reviewed here. Or at least they look identical to my eye. The colour below was named Ikat in the Silk Road kaleidoscope. It is a rich plum colour with a satin finish with very good pigmentation.

This chocolately brown colour was referred to as Brocade in the Silk Road kaleidoscope. I'm pretty certain it is the same colour as it has the same beautiful golden shimmer. I applied this as a liner yesterday and it works very well used this way as it is has very good pigmentation.

From left to right: Come One, Come All colours swatched top to bottom

As is often the case with Le Métier de Beauté kaleidoscopes, I will need to experiment a little with placement to get all of these colours to work in combination. I am very excited by both the peach and the grey-green as they are unique colours in my collection. I can see me getting a lot of use from both eyeshadows as singles.

L- Come One, Come All, R - Silk Road

As a little extra I thought it might be interesting to compare the 'taupe' from Come One, Come All with the some similar kaleidoscopes colours. I think this comparison demonstrates that the eyeshadow in Come One, Come All is more silvery green than brown. It's probably unnecessary to share this picture but I do like a bit of makeup eye candy now and again!

I would like to say a very big thank you to Charleston Girl for helping me get hold of this little beauty. What do you think to this selection of colours? How would you make them work together?

A Quick Look at Come One, Come All Kaleidoscope

I'm really aware that there's been a lack of makeup posts these last few days. I was hoping to catch up a little over the weekend but I spent yesterday in Milton Keynes buying a new laptop (amongst other things, even a new MacBook can't totally distract me from looking at makeup!).

A new laptop isn't the only new shiny thing in my life at the moment. I returned home on Friday to find a much anticipated parcel. Charleston Girl from Best Things in Beauty helped me to get hold of the limited edition Le Métier de Beauté Come One, Come All Kaleidoscope.

It's even prettier that I had hoped and I can't wait to try the top two eyeshadows in particular. No doubt this week I shall be waiting for a break in the clouds to take pictures in daylight.

So, what have you been up to this weekend, have you made any new beauty purchases? What's new with you?