DIY Lipstick Palette Using a Z Palette

Z Palette has been around for a few years now and is pretty popular amongst makeup enthusiasts and artists alike. The empty magnetized palettes are great for storing depotted products of different shapes and sizes that would not regularly fit in custom pre-aligned palettes. I’ve never purchased one since most of my depotted products are round and fit into my MAC palettes. I’m in the process of revamping my MUA Kit to condense it into smaller storage and was looking for a new way to store my lipsticks. While at The Makeup Show NYC I stopped at the Z Palette booth and saw the large palette and empty pans and figured that this would be perfect. I purchased the large palette in basic black which holds 50 pans and the pans to fill it.

What you will need…

Z-Palette (your choice of size)

Empty Magnetic Pans

Sanitizing Spray (I use Beauty So Clean) or 99% Alcohol

Spatula or sharp knife

Lipsticks of choice

round labels & pen

paper towels/wipes for clean up

Spray sanitizing spray or alcohol into the empty pans and let it dry. Sanitize every lipstick that you will be using by wiping the first few layers away with a paper towel, saturate with the sanitizing spray and let it dry. Now sanitize your spatula/knife. Starting with your first lipstick, slice off about 1/3 at the original angle. This way it will still be easy to use after. Use the spatula to push the lipstick inside of the pan and even out the top.

This is what I was using for my lipsticks before so I used the spatula to scrape some lipstick out of each jar and smashed it into the pan like above. You must clean the spatula well after each lipstick to avoid color transfer.

You can peel off the sticker from the bottom of the tube or use labels to create your own stickers. This way you know what color is in each pan. (Please excuse my jacked up nails as I was doing my mani that night) Continue this process until you have all of the lipstick shades in pans. Place the pans in the palette in order of your choice. Here is my finished palette…

I organized my palette starting with nudes to light peach/pink,

 then corals/oranges/reds/burgundy…

and last but not lease pinks/mauves/purples.

 I used lipsticks from a variety of brands including MUFE, MAC, Sleek Makeup, Wet ‘n Wild, Milani, Rimmel, Revlon and more in a variety of finishes. I had four spaces left and found one more shade that I wanted to add now I have three. I think I’ll be using these spaces for more nudes and another shade of coral or pink.

I love my new palette. It takes up way less space, it’s easier to use as I don’t have to unscrew anything just flip it open and pick a color, it’s easy to move colors around and it’s easy to refill. It’s also very pretty to look at! 🙂 You can also use this method for concealers, foundations and pressing pigments. Z Palettes come in a variety of sizes and can be purchased from zpalette.com along with the pans.

Do you store your lipsticks in a palette? If you’re an MUA, how do you store lipsticks in your kit?

The product(s) in this post was purchased with my own money with the exception of various shades of lipstick.  See my Disclosure page for additional information.