DIY Water-Activated Graphic Liner

My original formulation only used micas (technically, fluorphlogopite to avoid potential unethical mica mining where possible), but adding oxides helps with opacity. Here I used Synthetic Orange and Orange Oxide to keep things simple, but you could also use Zinc Oxide to brighten or Black Oxide to darken and/or mix and match as appropriate.

If you haven’t worked with oxides before, note that you won’t be able to see the colors from the oxides fully just by manually mixing. In making pressed eyeshadows, I grind the oxides into the powdered base, but given the amount of liquids we use in this recipe that will help dye the batch, grinding is not necessary. If you do want to grind the oxides, add the mica/fluorphlogopite afterwards, as mica/fluorphlogopite can lose luster when grinded. Or grind them all together if you want less luster.

I have not experimented with full oxides or other matte pigments/dyes yet for this formulation, but I will be doing so and will post my results.

I recommend this specific tea strainer/sieve because it’s the same diameter as the condiment cups, which makes the whole process easier. This tea strainer also comes in a ball form. When open, twist the strainer in the middle, and you can easily separate it into two strainers! Of course, you can use differently sized sieves and containers (and much larger ones if you’re making a large batch), but the ones I recommend are perfect for our batch size, as well as individual eyeshadow batch sizes.

This strainer from TKB will also work with condiment cups. 

I premixed the glycerin and preservative into a blue dropper bottle at the ratio of 99% glycerin and 1% preservative by weight. The glycerin is quite viscous, so the dropper will have thick coats of it on the outside of the dropper as well. To have more control over the weighing process, make sure the thick coats on the outside of the dropper fall off before adding the contents inside the dropper.

In fact, to have more control over the distilled water, I placed it into a dropper bottle as well.

The 5-gram clear containers I chose in part also because of the 26mm top opening, which is also the standard size for round eyeshadow tin pans. You can multi-task the press pack for both your eyeshadow needs and graphic liner needs!

You can substitute the pressing ribbons with other fabric or paper towels. You can also use a U.S. quarter and some other tool to help you press.