I did it! I summoned up the courage to do Round 2 of depotting and rearranging my Ambient Lighting Edit Palettes! This time, I had to do things old school because I left my Z-Palette branded Z-Potter behind in the US (and the brand only ships them within North America). I could try to look into purchasing a portable induction burner here, but I don’t depot often enough for it to be worth it.

I won’t be giving instructions on the depotting process because I wrote a very detailed post already in Round 1. Only a few aspects changed this time around:
One was my heating tool, a titanium flat iron, that I set at around 310°F-340°F for the tin palettes and had to bump it all the way to 380°F with the plastic quad. Another change is that I sought out magnetic strips that are specifically intended to hold objects on a wall. I figured that should ensure the adhesive backing and magnetic grip are both strong enough for palettes that will always be laid flat anyway. Lastly, my husband bought me a label maker, so I could print and stick the shade names onto the metal stickers instead of writing everything by hand.

Since I hadn’t dealt with the plastic Hourglass palettes at the time of Round 1, I will give the warning here that they are much more difficult to depot than the tin ones. The plastic palettes have more glue and they are set way tighter/flush to the sides of the component. Meaning, it is even harder to wedge the cosmetic spatula between the tile and walls of the compact. I couldn’t get them out without scraping at least some of the edges. In addition, the bottom of the compact will be partly warped/melted because it requires so much heat. My husband thinks keeping the palettes at lower heat, but for a much longer amount of time might work too, but I didn’t have the patience to try that method.

This is an example of how the plastic palette looked once two shades were depotted (and you can see where I quit midway while attempting to depot a third). I used the aluminum foil between the plastic and my hair straightener to avoid dirtying the plates.

The first two customized palettes I’m going to show are the ones I said I would make in my Swan Palette and Dusk Quad review. The arrangements aren’t the exact same because I tried to avoid depotting the powders that I planned to keep within the same palettes anyway.

The “Panda” Palette
(in Leopard Packaging that used to hold the Snake Palette shades)

Original Snake Palette vs Current Snake Palette

Solar Glow (Highlighter) – Fox
At Night (Blush) – Dusk Quad, Permanent Shade
Eternal Light (Finishing Powder) – Lotus, Permanent Shade
Mood Flush (Blush) – Sculpture and Dusk Quad
Mystic Flush (Blush) – Snake
Solar Bronze (Bronzer) – Snake

This is my “main” palette, the one I intend to keep within easy reach in my makeup collection.
It’s a bit of a shame that my perfect palette has the most dings and nicks from the depotting process. For some reason, the glue in the Fox palette was a silvery color. Hourglass usually uses a clear glue, unless the orange-yellow residue color isn’t from the tile. The glue under Amethyst Haze was thin, so it was easy to pop it out. I expected the same ease from the Solar Glow Highlighter, but it was so stuck in the pan that I not only dug into the powder, a few small pieces of terracotta/clay tile broke off the edge in the process. This was the first time I’d ever broken the actual tile, and the amount of glue was 5x thicker than what was under Amethyst Haze. It was such a thick layer and felt like silicone/rubber. It was also the strange silver color.
As for At Night, that came from the plastic palette with such little space to place my cosmetic spatula, so damage was unavoidable. I dug a bit into the baked tile as well.

I already talked about my reason for choosing these shades in that Swan review, but for those who didn’t read it, they are essentially a mix of my favorite shades that suit me the best and I can wear them all year round.

The “Rabbit” Palette (in Fox Packaging)

Original Fox Palette vs Current Fox Palette

Mood Exposure (Blush) – 5 Holiday Palettes, Permanent Shade
Lucid Glow (Blush as Highlighter) – Fox, Ghost Quad, Sunset Quad, Barney’s Volume III
Desert Light (Finishing Powder) – Fox
Canyon Heat (Blush) – Fox
Luminous Coral (Blush) – Swan
Bronze Fusion (Bronzer) – Fox

The original photo was taken on a sunnier day, so it looks a bit warmer. The second photo heavily relies on artificial light, as it has been cloudy all week. Please excuse those differences.

This palette is one that I will get more use from when I’m back to my winter shade. It comprises of some of my favorite powders that aren’t exactly deep skin friendly. Even though 4 out of 6 powders are from the Fox Palette, the addition of the two other blushes makes this the kind of color story I could envision Hourglass releasing as a “medium” palette in the future.

The New Dusk Palette

Original Quad vs Current Quad

Sublime Flush (Blush) – Dusk Quad, Permanent
Radiant Light (Finishing Powder) – Leopard, Permanent
Oasis Glow (Blush) – Dusk Quad, Evil Eye
Natural Bronze (Bronzer) – Swan, Evil Eye

If I can get Oasis Glow out of this palette (and most likely put Lustrous Bronze Light instead), I will turn this into a completely unusable quad. I don’t want to throw the powders away, but I don’t need Radiant Light, Sublime Flush can look a bit ashy at times, and I can’t use Natural Bronze at all. Considering the standard packaging, it would be ideal to store my least used powders. I would then put the quad in my “makeup cemetery,” the box where I keep makeup I don’t use anymore, but don’t have the heart to toss out.

The New Swan Palette (in Deer Packaging)

Current Palette

Ethereal Flush (Blush) – Leopard
Golden Hour (Highlighter) – Swan
Sunset Glow (Blush) – Butterfly
Amethyst Haze (Blush) – Fox
Coral Haze (Blush) – Snake
Mauve Fusion (Blush) – Swan

Original Palette

Initially, I just swapped out Luminous Coral for Amethyst Haze, but upon further reflection, I thought it would be cooler to make a blush-heavy palette. If I’m not sure if I want to wear the blushes from my main and winter palettes, I’m most likely going to find something I like in this one (especially if I’m in the mood for pink).

The New Lotus Palette (in Dragon Packaging)

Gilded Strobe Light (Highlighter) – Lotus
Desert Flush (Blush) – Lotus
Dim Light (Finishing Powder) – Swan, Leopard, Many Others, Permanent
Radiant Rose Strobe Light (Highlighter) – Lotus
Red 0 (Blush) – Lotus
Solar Bronze (Bronzer) – Lotus

I only swapped out Eternal Light for Dim Light. Since Red 0 is one of my most intense Hourglass blushes, I wanted to have something in here to help tone the color down, other than Desert Flush. Plus, I didn’t want to alter Lotus too much. It’s one of the deepest color stories Hourglass has created, and I would like to keep it that way in my mind, especially since this isn’t a palette I reach for that often. I may as well not mess with the arrangement too much if there’s very little benefit in doing so.

The New Owl Palette (formerly Leopard Color Story)

Original Palette vs Current Palette

Dim Light (Finishing Powder) – Leopard, Swan, Many Others, Permanent
Celestial Strobe Light (Highlighter) – Leopard
Sun Beam (Blush) – Snake
Burnished Glow (Blush) – Tiger
Iridescent Rose (Blush) – Tiger, Leopard, Horse
Lustrous Bronze Light – Leopard, Elephant

I can use most of the shades in here, but the chances are slim that I would actually want to pick them over my new versions of Snake, Fox, and Swan. Considering Owl never had its own color story, and I wanted this palette mainly for the packaging, I felt it was a good place to store less used products. I can store Owl away as if it’s just a collector piece.

My Previously Rearranged Tiger Palette

Original Palette vs First Edited Palette

Current Palette

Transcendent Light (Finishing Powder) – Tiger, Trio Volume III
Sunset Flush (Blush) – Swan
Infinite Strobe Light (Blush) – Snake
Divine Strobe Light (Highlighter) – Tiger
Mood Flush (Blush) – Dusk Quad, Sculpture Quad
Soft Flush (Blush) – Butterfly

Tiger (and technically Butterly) was the first Hourglass Palette that I made big changes to. It was the proof of concept that rearranging the powders could make me use them more. It may not look very used, but I took it traveling several times and this was my main face palette until the Snake Palette was released and I started to use that one more, specifically for the bronzer.

Although I removed Sunset Glow, which was my biggest reason for continuing to seek out this palette, I added my backup of Mood Flush which is one of my favorite shades. Plus, Infinite Strobe Light is technically a workable highlighter on me, and Sunset Flush can work as a highlighter too. So, I consider this a wild card palette. I don’t think I’ll have much of a reason to crack it open for a long time, but it still contains products I have enjoyed in the past and may feel the urge to use again in the future.

I should probably note that rather than putting magnetic strips on the tin directly, I could have just attached magnets to the bottom of the powder tiles and that would stick just fine to the metal bottom. The reason I didn’t do this is so that I could store the Hourglass powders in any empty magnetic palette I want (that’s deep enough of course). I figured that would give me more storage possibilities.

I hope you’ve found this post interesting! Which palette combination do you like the most? Have you tried depotting these powders too, or are you waiting for Hourglass to relaunch their custom quads and/or introduce custom palettes?

-Lili ❤