Vintage Cosmetics Makeover

Want to give your new cosmetics a vintage look? Watch the video below!

Wouldn’t you love to have some beautiful,  vintage style cosmetics to use in your everyday routine? Today I will show you how to transform your everyday cosmetics into some gorgeous vintage inspired packaging.

I’ve always been inspired by those glamorous boudoir scenes in old black and white movies from the 40s and 50s where the woman is sitting at her mirror in her silk robe with the feather trim and her vanity is covered with all kinds of beautiful bottles, shiny compacts and lipsticks – so romantic.  

Well now we can have our own luxurious products to use in our daily routines.   This is all about elevating your everyday experience. 

So… let’s get started!

The first thing you will need is your current make up stash. Go through it and get rid of anything you no longer want or use. Decide which packages will be good candidates for a makeover. I recommend lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes and blush compacts to start. I will be doing an assortment so I can demonstrate different ways to makeover the packaging.

Supplies:

Your current make up stash
Metallic spray paint in Gold, silver or copper
Metallic scrapbook paper with embossed or patterned finish
Xacto knife
Vintage and thrifted pieces of old jewelry, bits and bobs
Strong glue, I am using E6000
Patterned papers for the inside of the compacts
Rubbing alcohol or all purpose cleaner, cotton balls and swabs for cleaning make up containers
Painter’s or removable tape
Cardboard box for spray painting
Pliers and wire cutters for removing backs from jewelry

The first thing you want to do is clean your makeup using some rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball or cotton swabs.  Remove any bits of color and powder remnants from the containers inside and out.  If there is any text on the label you want to preserve you can cover it with a piece of removable tape.  I have added a little piece of tape on my lipsticks so that I can see what the color is after it is painted.

Now we are ready to paint.  You should always do this outside due to the fumes and overspray.  Place your containers on a piece of cardboard or newspaper and place that inside a cardboard box.  This will contain the overspray from the paint. 

Spray paint your containers and let them dry.  Then turn them over and spray the other side.  Repeat until you have completely covered the surface of the containers.  Let them dry thoroughly.

Once they are all dry it’s time to decorate them.

Now we can decide how we are going to embellish our packages.  I look through my jewelry and my embossed papers and pick out some that I think will fit and look nice on my packaging.  This might take a bit of time but don’t overthink it.  Most anything will look good.

With our paper picked out we are going to apply some glue to the top of the container being careful not to not apply too much glue I spread the glue around with a q-tip so that the glue goes to the edge. 

Then we are going to place the container glue side down on the back of our embossed paper and press gently but firmly.  Be sure to wipe away any glue that oozed out.  While that dries we can move on to our next piece. 

Here is a close up of the glue application before I turn it over to adhere it to the decorative paper.

Now that our glue is dry on the paper we can carefully trim off the excess paper with our exacto knife.  Make sure you have a fresh blade so that you get clean edges with your cuts.

Continue to trim the paper off of all of your packaging after it dries.

If the inside of your packaging is not so pretty you can add a bit of patterned paper to spiff it up.  For this you will trim your paper to size and glue it down.

Now it is time to get the jewelry or embellishment ready by trimming off any metal bits that will keep the piece from laying flat.

To add our embellishment, apply a bit of glue on your package and set the embellishment in it.  Let it dry – I leave mine to dry overnight – that way I don’t disturb the embellishment before it is firmly set.

So there you have it – your cosmetics are all glammed up and ready to use. 

When you are ready to discard your make up you can clean out the inside and then donate it as is. Or you can pry off the jewelry and reuse that piece on your next batch of refurbished makeup.