The Festival Face Factory - an All-in-one Makeup Kit

The Festival Face Factory

a highly customizable, pocket-sized, all-in-one makeup kit!

No need to lug around your whole makeup collection and waste precious space in your luggage.
With this kit, you can have all your beauty essentials in one pocket-sized pretty little tin.
This is great if you’re going to a festival, on vacation or basically anywhere that is not your home.

Plus: It’s entirely up to you what goes in this kit. Products, colours and quality (!) of the components are entirely your choice

What you will need:

- a container ( I used an old cigarette tin, but anything small that closes properly will work)

- Fimo / Sculpey in the color of your choice

- rolling pin

- some perfume bottles, lipstick tubes or moisturizer dispensers (I’ll explain that later)

- your favorite beauty essentials (like compact powder, pressed eyeshadow and lipstick)

- Vaseline

- black oxide

- talcum powder (or cornstarch or rice powder)

- a tiny bit of oil (e.g. coconut, olive or jojoba)

- small bowl

- ziploc or freezer bag

- cosmetic grade glitter

- 2 tealights

Optional:

- some colorful or printed paper for decoration

- an old pocket mirror

Step 1: Planning

First of all, I considered which products I really can’t live without and definitely needed in this kit.

I then sketched a rough layout for the tin. As you can see, earthy tones are what suits myself best, but you can basically do anything you want. Holographic turquoise eyeshadow and a neon pink lipstick? Heck yeah, go for it! It’s all up to you.

Tip:

I wanted this kit to be multi-purpose.

Unit 2 (the black one) doubles as mascara and eyeliner (and body paint for fake tattoos, if that’s your thing)

But the Vaseline (unit 7) is the true allrounder here:

-use it on your hair to make it shiny and tame stray hair

-mix with lipstick (unit 5) and voilà: you have a cream blush

-use it as a base for your brow powder to adhere to

-or simply use it as plain old lipbalm

Step 2: Setting Up Your Palette

In this step we will create the molds for our products.

First, roll out a thin layer of Fimo/Sculpey, only about 2mm or 1/16 of an inch thick.
Then utilize your empty container (cigarette tin) as a sort of cookie cutter to cut out the exact shape. This will be our base. Put this layer aside for now.

Now roll out another layer of Fimo/Sculpey, about twice (or a bit more) as thick as the first one. Again, cut out a piece in the exact shape of your tin.

Step 3: Punching Out the Holes

Now we’re going to punch out the individual molds for our palette.

To do so, we’ll place the thicker layer of polymer clay into the tin so it will keep its general shape.

But since the thicker layer will be on top later, we will have to get it out of the tin again, once the molds are cut out. So just pop in a small piece of scrap paper under your thicker layer to prevent it from sticking to the tin.

Step 4: Punching Out the Holes

This is where your perfume bottles and lipstick tubes, or their caps, to be exact, come into play.

Again, use the caps in a cookie cutter kind of way to punch holes in the clay layer according to the layout you initially planned.

Once you're done with all the molds, simply turn the tin upside down. The clay layer should fall right out.

Step 5: Assembling the Layers

Now place the thinner base layer of clay into your tin, put the thicker perforated layer (aka the swiss cheese layer) on top and press it down slightly.

Doing so will quite likely deform your punched out holes. To fix that, simply place the caps in the holes one more time and wiggle them around a bit until the molds are in shape again.

Note: Please also do this if the holes didn’t deform. We actually want the molds to be slightly bigger than the caps since the polymer clay might shrink a little after baking and the caps should still fit into the molds later on for pressing.

Step 6: Preparation and Baking

Next, take a sharpened pencil or xacto knife or anything pointy to draw a grid pattern into your molds like shown in the picture. This increases the surface area of the pots and will help the products adhere to it / prevent it from crumbling to pieces.

Tip: For added fanciness I also stamped on some stars with a tiny cookie / fondant cutter as you can see in the picture. You could also use a pencil to draw shapes or even write something on there. But that’s completely optional.

Now it’s time for baking (yay!).
Bake your clay according to the instructions on its label, subtracting about 5 minutes from the recommended time, because the layers are so thin. You don’t want to burn your palette. Since I used Sculpey, it was 10 minutes at 130°C / 275°F for me.

Note: If you are using a plastic container for this makeup kit, I’d suggest not putting the plastic in the oven, but baking the clay individually and reassembling it after it has cooled down.

(I know polymer clay is basically just plastic as well, but you know, better safe than sorry)

Let your palette cool down after baking. This shouldn’t take too long. After that, flip it over to test whether your clay layers are falling out. If so, simply glue them into your tin.

Step 7: Preparation and Filling the Pots

(Since I only had ugly flesh-colored sculpey lying around, I also painted the clay after it cooled down. I went for classic black but once again, you can go wild here. The only important thing is to paint your palette before filling it.)

Now it’s time to gather your products. If you’re anything like me, you probably have some cracked and crumbled powder foundation / eyeshadow and a beloved lipstick that has gone messy over time lying around in your drawer that you just couldn’t throw away because you still have feelings for it and just KNEW it could be useful some day. Now is their time to shine again!

(You can use perfectly intact products as well, though.)

Step 8: Powder Foundation

Simply put the crumbled pieces into a Ziploc bag. If you don’t have any crumbled goods, use a knife or a spoon to scrape off some material from your pressed product. Make sure to accumulate a generous amount of crumbled / scraped material, since we’re going to press it together again later, reducing its volume to about a third.

In your Ziploc or freezer bag crush the lumps of product until you get a relatively fine powder.

Now fill your mold with the powdered product as shown in the picture. Tap the tin lightly to your work surface to spread the powder a bit more evenly. (As you can tell from the picture, things can get a little messy here. But that’s okay, we can easily clean this up later)

Now for the pressing. Take the cap (and corresponding container) that you used to punch the hole for this unit. This is going to be our “stamp” to press the powder with. Simply put it on top of your powder mountain and press down firmly for at least 30 seconds.

Tip: To create that fancy mesh texture which most store-bought products have, simply stretch a nylon sock / tights over the cap before pressing.

This mesh texture increases the surface area, thus making it easier to take up the product with a brush or sponge. It also helps prevent your products from sticking to your “pressing stamps”.

After 30 seconds of vigorous pressing your powder should be neatly set into its mold. You can now simply shake off any excess powder and clean the edges (and the rest of the palette if you’re clumsy like me) with a Q-tip and a little water.

Step 9: Eyeshadow and Brow Powder

I decided to first finish all the powdered products before moving on to lipstick and mascara/eyeliner.

So for your eyeshadows and your brow powder just repeat what you’ve just done with your powder foundation:
Crumble, crush, press, clean.
Until you’re done with all the powdered products.

Your kit should look something like the picture shown above after that.

Step 10: Mascara/Eyeliner

Now we are going to make our own cake mascara / eyeliner which is actually super easy.

Put about half a teaspoon of talcum powder and one teaspoon of black oxide into a small bowl or container (I used a shot glass) and stir until well combined. Don’t worry if the mixture looks more like a light grey rather than a sexy midnight black, this will change with the next step.
Now add about 8-10 drops of oil to the mix and stir it in. The mix should still be on the dry side. After that, add some water, drop by drop, stirring after each one. I ended up needing approximately 10 drops of water. You know it’s just right, when your mix has turned dark black and has become lumpy and hard to stir.

Now you can press it into the mold, again using a nylon sock and your “pressing stamp”. Just like last time, fill the mold, press down for 30 seconds and you’re done.

To use this mascara, simply wet a spoolie brush (or a fine brush for eyeliner) and rub it over your black powder. It will then start to form a paste / liquid (depending on the amount of water on your brush) which you can easily apply to your lashes, eyelids or any other part of your body.

Step 11: Lipstick

In this step, we will melt a small quantity of our favorite lipstick and pour it into the mold.
You could use the double boiler method for this, but since it is such a tiny amount of lipstick, I always feel that this is too much effort. I simply use one of those aluminum cups of tealights (actual candle and wick removed) and scrape in some lipstick. Then use tweezers or pliers to hold this cup over a candle flame until your lipstick is melted and pour it into its designated mold. Let it cool and harden completely. (Yes, you may put your tin in the freezer for that, I’m no good at being patient either)

After about 10 minutes in the freezer (aww yeah coffee break!) your lipstick should be ready and look similar to the picture shown above.

Tip: Pinch your aluminum cup on one side before heating to make the pouring easier.

...Pro Tip: Just after I finished this instructable it occurred to me: Yes, yes of course you could simply just use a tablespoon over a flame to melt your lipstick! (Duh!) I absolutely recommend this method over my fidgety tealight-plier-construction

Step 12: Multi-purpose Vaseline and Glitter

The easiest part of the kit! Simply put some Vaseline in the mold and smooth it out a little with a spoon or cosmetic spatula (popsicle stick). You can use the Vaseline as a lip balm, mixed with lipstick as a cream blush, as hair balm, brow wax, etc.

Tip: If you want to, you can add some flavor/fragrance to your Vaseline. If you’re only going to use it on your hair, you can even add a spritz of your favorite perfume. You should not, however, get the perfumed Vaseline into your eyes or on your lips. You don’t want to irritate these sensitive areas. And after all, at least tastewise, most of my perfumes feature some rather prominent top notes of BLEGH.

I recommend using flavor oils like the ones sold for making lip balm or the plain old flavor oils used for baking that you quite probably have lying around in your pantry somewhere.

I used one drop of orange and lemon each to get a fresh summery fragrance and flavor.

Hair & Body Glitter

Simply mix some cosmetic grade glitter into your Vaseline, spread it into its mold and we’re done!
You can use this sparkling paste all over your body and hair for full-on festival fanciness.

Step 13: Decorating the Kit

Basically, your tin is ready to go as it is.
All you need to additionally pack is a makeup sponge, a spoolie and/or fine brush and an eyeshadow applicator and your pocket sized beauty salon is complete!

I decided to decorate my tin and add a mirror.

I printed my design onto vinyl sticker paper, cut it out and just stuck it to the lid of the tin.
Regular paper and glue will work just as well. Maybe try using scrapbooking papers or gift wrap for some nice patterns.

I got the mirror out of a cheap pocket mirror from the dollar store which cost close to nothing.
Just glue your mirror into your tin and there it is:

Your very own Festival Face Factory! All set to follow you wherever you may end up this summer.


I hope you enjoyed this Instructable. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for improvement, please let me know :)