I recently learned to use make-up (thanks, YouTube!), and along with that, I’ve learned about what seems really overpriced, and what seems less stupidly overpriced. Of course all make-up is overpriced to some degree or another (ahem, $50 mascara), but some things are worse than others.
I tend to think eyeshadow is worse than everything else. Well, everything else that I buy, so it’s pretty much just mascara vs. eyeshadow. I am clearly a very experienced cosmetics shopper.
I recently made some mineral makeup, and then branched out into blush and bronzer. Since all of those things are in the fluffy coloured category, so I figured eyeshadow couldn’t be too far away.
My initial hesitation against making eyeshadow was the colour issue; needing a different mica or oxide for everything. But I have come to the realization that I am rather boring, and pretty much just wear brown, beige, and beigy-brown eye shadows. I’ll branch out into something with green hints, but not really. I’m pretty dull. And I already had a brown iron oxide. And I’m tired of having a hard time finding non-sparkling eye shadows. So I had no more excuses.
The are a few minor differences between eyeshadow and mineral makeup. You want them to be more pigmented, a finer grind, and more opaque. So I used less titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, and more sericite mica (USA / Canada) and magnesium stearate. I used French Red clay since I was making brown shadow anyways, but if you wanted to do something in a cool colour, you would want to use a white clay.
The handyness of this process/recipe is that it makes a trio of eye shadows that blend together beautifully because you start with the pale colour, scoop some out, add some more oxide to get the medium shade, scoop some out, and then add some more oxide to get the dark shade. That way you get three eye shadows that are all part of the same colour continuum. And you only have to make one mess.
I recently discovered the brilliance of using an old coffee grinder to make mineral make-up. It does a beautiful job of crushing and grinding down the powders, like the titanium dioxide that I bought that’s fairly large grain. It also means far less powder pressing and bowl dirtying. Brilliant! So, before you do this, go to Value Village and get yourself a used $5 coffee grinder.
Homemade Eyeshadow Trio
1 tsp titanium dioxide
2 tsp sericite mica (USA / Canada)
1 tsp silk powder
1 tsp magnesium stearate5 drops jojoba or argan oil (USA / Canada)
1 tsp red clay
Brown oxide, as needed
Red oxide, as neededBefore you get started, keep in mind that this is a light, fine powder, and the coffee grinder really gets it whipped into a frenzy. So each time you’re done blending, give it a minute or so to settle down or you’ll end up inhaling a bunch of it every time, and that’s probably not good for you.
Place the first four ingredients in the coffee grinder and blend, stopping to tap the lid and the sides every so often, for a minute or two. Once that’s been turned into a fine powder, add a few drops of argan or jojoba oil (USA / Canada), and blend until you can’t tell you added it. You’ll want to scrape the corners and the bottom of the grinder to make sure it all gets incorporated.
Add the clay and blend. Then start adding the brown iron oxide. Here’s what I did for my skin tone and preferences:
First off I blended in 1/32nd of a teaspoon of brown iron oxide, and then scooped out about 2tsp, enough to fill a 5g sifter jar.
Then I went back to the blender and added 5/32nd a teaspoon of brown iron oxide and 1/32nd of red iron oxide to warm it up a little. And that made my medium tone. So I scooped out another 2tsp to fill another sifter jar.
Then I went back to the mixture left in the blender and added 7/32nds of a teaspoon of brown iron oxide, and 1 or 2/32nds of red iron oxide to take it to the dark side.
Be sure to test it on your skin! And not just your skin, but your face. Use the same kind of brush you’ll be using to apply it later so you can see exactly how it will go on later. I used a “smidge” or “pinch” (or something) miniature measuring spoon that measured 1/32nd tsp and added one or two at a time. If your skin is darker, which it easily could be, you may need more oxides. If you’re paler, you’ll need less, of course.
Notes as of November 2018:
- Make sure you wear a dust mask so you don’t inhale the powders after whipping them up—that can be dangerous to your health over the long term.
- If you want to press this makeup, this is how.
- Check out my book, Make it Up, for a better formula that uses fewer ingredients and is much more flexible. My book also has lots of colour blending tips and a few different starter colour blends so you can create a wide variety of different shades of eyeshadow.
This sounds like a lot of fun! To bad I have to work so much.
I made these as a fun little after work project earlier this week, and it wasn’t terribly time consuming. Probably faster than taking the time to go to the drugstore and buy some, especially considering I’m set for eyeshadow for ages. Also, using a coffee grinder makes this SO much faster than my previous method of using a sieve!
I apologize if you covered this previously, but may I ask where you purchased all the ingredients? I’m not sure I have anything locally that would have them. Thanks!
Carrie; I order almost all of my ingredients from http://www.newdirectionsaromatics.ca. They have the best prices I’ve ever seen, often being 1/3 or less of what you could get in a local store. The shipping is a bit steep (~$16 in Canada, though it is UPS), but it’s totally worth it. If you spend $25 you’re probably saving at least $16. New Directions also has American and Australian branches, so you can likely avoid paying over-border shipping charges. They also sell a lot of different types of packaging. I got the sifter jars I used here at a local soaping store, but you could easily use little lip balm containers, which NDA sells. And lastly, the coffee grinder is from Value Village, and it’s a total lifesaver!
Can you use the same coffee grinder you use for coffee beans? I don’t want to wreck the taste of my coffee, but don’t want to have to get another grinder if I don’t need to 🙂 I just have a simple kitchen aid grinder.
Sadly having your coffee grinder do double duty is not a good idea here 🙁 The powders for make up are very fine, and I don’t think you’d ever be able to get your coffee grinder totally clean of them. I can’t vouch for their taste, haha, but it’s probably not a good idea. I’ve wrecked coffee grinders trying to get them thoroughly clean (water, it turns out, is a bad idea), so I’d just drop by Value Village and grab one for $5 when you can. I’ve got two DIY-specific coffee grinders that I paid $5–15 for, and I always keep my eye out for coffee grinders at rummage sales & op-shops. I think you’ll find it’s a super useful thing to have once you’ve got it (I use a coffee grinder for all my masks & make-ups these days, as well as for grinding up things to add to soaps)!
I have an allergy to store bought eye makeup. Would this be a safer alternative?
Well… that depends. What ingredient(s) are you allergic to? My homemade cosmetics are free of things like artificial fragrances, talc, and parabens, but unless you actually know which ingredients you’re allergic to, it’s pretty hard to say one way or another 🙁
Hi Marie,
Can you tell me what the clay in this recipe is for? I made the eyebrow filler/fixative and didn’t use clay in that one but just noticed that this recipe calls for clay. I’m planning on making a cooler, purple-y coloured eyeshadow with ultramarines so just wondering if I need the white clay. Thanks!
Clay mostly helps with moisture management, so it’s especially good for those with oily eyelids (even my eyelids are oily by the end of the day, and I’ve got very dry skin). I’d advise you to try a batch with and a batch without, though, and see what you like best 🙂
I will probably add the clay since my eyelids tend to get really oily! Thanks Marie!
Let me know how it goes 🙂
I might’ve asked this on another post already… Is the titanium oxide supposed to be titanium dioxide? I can’t find titanium oxide on sapphire or NDA, or even amazon. Is there something that could serve as a substitute? is it ok to leave it out? Or is it a must have?
Yes it is! Good catch, whoops. So many “oxides” and one “dioxide”, looks like my fingers got a bit confused there 😉 I fixed it 🙂
Hey!
Is there any alternative to silk powder? Will the recipe turn out fine without it? I don’t have any on hand and am super keen to try this recipe out!
Hi Kristen! You can just leave it out 🙂
In your picture you have activated charcoal in the background. Could you use some charcoal to really darken the base and then add a blue or purple oxide to get a fun color? Or would you recommend black oxide instead? I’m trying to get a cool tone dark purple to make as a gift.
Hi Liz! You can definitely tweak the colour however you like with different oxides 🙂 Feel free to use either activated charcoal or black oxide—whatever you have on hand. I often save my activated charcoal for purposes where it’s special drawing properties are useful and use the oxide for places where I’m only looking for colour 🙂
Just wanted to add my two cents that I made this and played with it in two ways – we switched out the clay for kaolin because my friends and I made a silver one, and then for australian beige and made a bronze one. Both are great. WE also decided to try and press it with rubbing alcohol, which did not go well – almost no pigment picks up on a brush or finger. If you make it, keep it loose!
Hi Ali,
I was just wondering how this would be if I pressed it with alcohol, so THANK YOU so much for your comment! That saves me some time. 🙂
🙂
Wonderful! I’m so glad you kicked some eyeshadow butt 🙂 And thanks for the tip on the rubbing alcohol—how odd!
Pressing is a tricky process! Matte shadows are very difficult to press, opposed to those with mica shimmer in them. Mattes need something to bind them together. Silk Natruals sells a nice pressing medium. You can press shimmer shadows though with some coconut oil and 70 but preferably 90% alcohol, a quarter (or whatever fits in your pan) and a cloth. YouTube has some excellent tutorials for pressing!
I’ve certainly found I like loose powders more and more with the irksomeness of pressing, haha!
Hi Marie! I have 2 questions,the first being I do not have red clay but I do have red iron oxide, do you think that would be a suitable alternative or is the clay necessary for texture? If so perhaps I can use kaolin clay and add the red oxide as well to get the color? Secondly, I ordered some zeolite powder (not from new directions because it is discontinued) and it is kind of a light green color, is that what it should be? I know its not called for in this recipe but it is in several that I want to make. Thanks in advance for your help!
Hey Maggie! Honestly, I’d really just recommend waiting for my book to come out—the new eye shadow recipe in it is so much better than this one, and with much fewer fussy ingredients like multicoloured clays. You can use kaolin + oxide (oxide as an alternative for clay would give you a mightily red eye shadow). My zeolite is perfectly flesh coloured, not green at all. Again, the book doesn’t count on clays for colours—sorry to be so “just buy my book” haha, but I just finished it and I’m really thrilled with everything in it, making a lot of the cosmetic recipes I’ve published in the past seem rather “meh” in comparison 😛
Hi Marie,
Have you come up with a cleaner for cleaning and sanitizing (and even moisturizing) our makeup brushes? There are a lot of products out there with some nasty ingredients in them. Would love to make my own.
Hey Caryn! I honestly just use my handmade bar soaps and shampoos. I’ve been doing this for years and my brushes are doing great! I have definitely had makeup counter employees sneer at me when I tell them I don’t need brush cleaner because I use soap, but hey… I figure if it’s good enough for my hair, my makeup brushes will be fine 😛
Hi!
I was wondering if these eyeshadows can be made with just mica powders and titanium dioxide. I don’t have magnesium stearate, and I was wondering what it does. Is it an emulsifier? Thanks 🙂
Well, I guess you could, but it would be awful, so that sort of defeats the point 😛 Magnesium stearate is for slip and adhesion, two very important things in makeup! Honestly, I’d recommend just waiting for my book—the eyeshadow recipe in there is much better. You might also want to read this 🙂
Hi Marie,
I’ve bought your book and am enjoying it thoroughly. I made the eye shadow base powder tonight and it’s looking rather clumpy. It doesn’t feel that way but it certainly doesn’t look like your photo’s. This may seem odd but when you say 5/32nd you mean 1/32 filled 5x’s, correct? I’m also using Vitamin E MT 50 which is very thick. I’m wondering if I’m adding too much boron nitride or if my Vitamin E is too thick. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Katy
Hey Katy! As long as it feels silky smooth, looking a bit clumpy isn’t bad—that just means it’s moist, and once you add pigments that’ll go away a bit. You are totally right about the 5/32 tsp, so it sonuds like you did everything right 🙂 I used the same Vitamin E!
Hi Marie, I have a question about the eyeshadow base in the book. It calls for *35* drops of jojoba oil! Is that right, or maybe a typo? I made it without checking this recipe first, and now I see this recipe only has 5 drops of jojoba oil for about the same volume of powdered mix!
It’s correct 🙂 And it’s a much better recipe than this one!
Hey, Marie. I’ve bought your book a while ago and I did a few face makeup but I’m struggling with eye and lip makeup base. I can’t find magnesium myristate or boron nitride where I live (and ordering abroad on internet is not an option). Do you have/know any alternative? Thanks!
I’ve got an FAQ on this 🙂
I made the eyeshadow from the recipe in the book but it was really not pigmented. I even followed one of the color recipes you had in the book. I’ve tried applying it loose and I also pressed it but not much color pay off and the surface of the shadow in the run almost gets shiny like there’s a lot of oil buildup on the top. Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?
Send me an email and I’ll update you on the version of that recipe I teach in workshops 🙂
Do you have any tips for creating a sheer matte jeqel toned eyeshadow? I find that the ones in stores are too opaque to create a sheer wash of color for day to day.
Is that just significantly harder to do for medium, muted, unnatural colors like greens blues and purples?
I think you’ll find what you are looking for in my book It’s called Make it Up: The Essential Guide to DIY Makeup and Skin Care and it’s all about how to create your own makeup at home. I’ve compiled a big list of places to buy it here: https://www.humblebeeandme.com/make-it-up-preorder/. I believe the eyeshadows in there are just what you’re looking for 🙂 Happy making!
Hey! I bought your book and tried to make eyeshadows, and I have a question. I used only oxides for one of the shadows, but when following the pressing steps the shadow lost its pigment. As a loose shadow it was pigmented, but after pressing no color transferred. Do you know why this is happening?
It sounds like you might be pressing too hard, or if you are following the instructions I shared on YouTube recently, the issue is that you are only using oxides. If you read the partner blog post there’s more info on that. Happy making!