My first foray back into makeup started with reading blog's like phyrra.net and discovering the world of indie makeup. Here I found small companies producing amazing products in complex and bright shades for a fraction of the cost of what I would normally pay in store. Needless to say over the years I've collected a ridiculous amount of pigments and loose eyeshadows, I can't help myself there's just so many pretty colours!

Around this time I also found out about TKB trading and all the possibilities of making my own mineral makeup - so off I went and invested in all the micas, pressing powder mediums, empty pans, clear jars - the absolute works! Aaaaand about 3 custom eyeshadows later, into a plastic storage tub at the top of my wardrobe they went for about, oh I don't know, 2 years or so LOL.

What's all this back story got to do with today's post I hear you ask? Well somehow or another I ended up reading a blog swatch post on some Fyrinnae shadows and all nostalgic like, went to my stash and thought I have so many here that I just never bother to use, living in their drawers, never seeing the light of the day cos lets face it I'm not a morning person and can't be arsed dealing with fussy if any makeup in the mornings.

....the inspiration to finally press them all struck! =D

So first steps first, I googled how to press Fyrinnae loose eyeshadows and came across shamelessfripperies and drivolaboutfrivol who had fantastic tutorials which I used as my baseline. 

I started with three different brands of shadows, Concrete Minerals, Fyrinnae and Shiro to trial with before destroying my entire stash! The formula ratio I used was 3 drops of the MyMix pressing medium from TKB trading to a 1/4 tsp sample from Fyrinnae, 6 drop for a full size Concrete Mineral shadow and 4 drops for a full size Shiro shadow. For the alcohol ratio it was as much as I needed to make it goopy.

- Concrete Minerals in Unity - 

As this was a full size eyeshadow I went balls-to-the-wall in trying to produce a perfect "wet sand texture" as mentioned in other tutorials..... translation: I sort of killed it with 6 drops of MyMix.

ALL TEH DROPZ!!!!! MWuahahahahhah

Due to my impatience and delusions of MacGuyver like prowess I used a cotton wool circle instead of paper towel and a TKB tamping tool to press the shadow. The result was a rather dry uneven looking product.  I think I used too much MyMix I left it to dry out more before attempting to swatch it.

After drying I found the shadow to be really hard and not have much payoff *cries* - definitely less MyMix on the next Concrete Mineral shadow. In an attempt to fix the appearance to a less lumpy look, I flooded the pan with alcohol and then re-pressed the shadow with paper towel and ribbon - which definitely fixed the look - it didn't however fix the colour pay off :(

a lil alcohol and she's all shiny again! still crappy colour payoff though  :(

Back to the drawing board, I googled some more and thought maybe I should try Fyrinna in Danse Macabre next and not try to wing it, but follow someone else's more accurate instructions to the letter LOL.
This time I used 3 drops of MyMix and as advised by Karima at ShamelessFripperies, stirred the shadow and pressing medium until it looked like wet sand, not feel like wet sand. I also added more alcohol to this batch, saturating the mix to resemble "magic mud", this goopy stuff we made in primary school out of corn starch and water that was both a solid and liquid at the same time.

*look* for the wet sand, don't feel for it

green eyeshadow snot

Next I scraped the mixture into the pan, spread it around and set it aside until it was dry enough to press. The main reason/thought behind waiting for it to dry is to stop the paper towel absorbing too much pigment when pressing. Once dry enough I pressed this one with paper towel a few times to soak up as much of the alcohol as possible and then using a ribbon I pressed it once more to leave cross hatch marks on the surface.

goop, goop, goop into the pan you go!

*glub glub*

voila! sexy Danse Macabre pressed eyeshadow

This one turned out miles better than Unity!

- Shiro in Din's Fire - 

Last up is Din's Fire by Shiro. Due to how much product is packed in to the tineh tineh jar, I transferred it to a larger one to mix in.
Also due to there being more product than in the Fyrinnae mini I add 3 drops of MyMix at the start, then cautiously worked in a 4th which resulted in perfect "wet sand" texture.
Put it into the pan, spread evenly and wait a while to let some of the alcohol evaporate and then press with paper towel and a ribbon.

transferred to bigger mixing jar and cutting in 4 drops of MyMix

magic eyeshadow mud

L-R CM's Unity, Shiro's Din's Fire, Fyrinnae's Danse Macabre under shaded afternoon daylight