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.
