And as promised I am going to show you how I refilled it in case you want to do the same.
There are a couple great tutorials online on how to fill a vintage lipstick using a pre-existing lipstick like
this one from Brittany at Va-Voom Vintage. And that is a perfect step-by-step guide if the vintage lipstick tube you want to fill fits standard modern lipstick.
Unfortunately, many vintage lipsticks were shorter and smaller around than most modern day lipstick and so it's not always easy to get a great fit without squishing your lipstick.
As you may or may not know there is a whole heap of lipstick left in the tube once you've used it down to the bottom of where it normally twists up to and I, not being a girl who ever wants to waste makeup always scrape out what is left and keep it in a palette.
So I decided to try melting down some of my lipstick leftovers to make a new tube but you could also use a new tube if you have a color you really like but it is too big to fit your vintage case.
Now that's what I call recycling!!
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| keeping your leftover lipstick in a palette is a great way not to waste any, not so practical for when out and about but great for applying at home with a brush. |
The tricky part was figuring out how to get the lipstick into a tube shape that would be a perfect fit for my vintage case. After a bit of initial humming and ha-ing I decided to make a sleeve out of normal kitchen parchment paper. I think waxed paper might work a tiny bit better in the future but as I didn't have any in the house I used normal baking sheet paper and it worked like a charm.
I first cleaned out the tube thoroughly with warm soapy water and heaps of baby wipes and cotton buds until it wash sparkling clean without a trace of any old lipstick or gunk.
Then I rolled the parchment paper into a tube shape using the handle of a spoon to give it form and put a piece of packing tape around it to hold it all together once I had it the right size. I fit the parchment paper into the base of the tube to gauge the size and from there with a little fiddling and patience I got the parchment paper to exactly the right size.
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| A bit of parchment paper, a spoon and some packing tape were all I needed to make my mould |
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| Make sure the tube fits flush with the base of the tube or it will wobble if it is too small or not fit in if it is too big. |
Next I used a double boiler system to melt down the lipstick without overheating it.
Maybe you could microwave it, but I used this method since I didn't want to risk burning the lipstick and it worked like a charm.
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| Be sure to use something shallow and narrow so you don't end up wasting lipstick coating the surface of something like a bowl. |
Okay, it was a tad messy, but not too bad.
I chose to use a glass shot glass with a deep base so that the glass wouldn't actually be in the boiling water and melted the lipstick down until it turned into a liquid stirring it with a wooden chopstick till it was all smooth.
Then I poured the melted lipstick into the tube of parchment paper (no pic of the pour as it required both hands to do leaving me unable to snap a photo, but pretty self explanitory I hope) and popped the tube in the freezer for about an hour until it was nice and solid.
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| Mmmm minty |
Once the lipstick seemed really solid I took the tube of parchment with the lipstick in it out of the vintage case and carefully unrolled it.
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| Be sure to use a piece of parchment paper to hold the lipstick otherwise you'll get finger prints on it and also lipstick all over your fingers. |
Holding the lipstick with a piece of parchment paper I heated the bottom of the lipstick briefly with a lighter just so it would liquefy a tad so it would stick better when I pushed it into the base of the lipstick tube.
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| Pretty darn good for home made if I do say so myself :) |
Over all I am really happy with the way this turned out.
Hope this helps you if you decide to do this on your own.
Let me know how it goes!
