Making Up for Lost Time
When you can't use the make up, but you want to make up for it?
No longer good for your skin, but what are the other ways can it be used? We had collected a brimming box full of expired makeup from an upcycling Facebook group. I can sympathize the feeling of buying makeup products - for my case, they’re occasionally used for those important events and then left forgotten until one day, you find that it has expired way beyond the use by date.
If one was to roughly break down the components of makeup, it would be a mixture of wax, pigments and additional fillers. A little trick I learned in my art school days was that baby oil was a pretty good and (cheap) way of dissolving away difficult stains - if I could remove an accidental wood lacquer off a floor with baby oil, make-up is certainly no exception.
Experiments with baby oil and make up resulted in a crude oil paint; it was paintable but definitely not up to par to paints that you would buy in an art store, but considering that I was only mixing it with a mortar and pestle versus using a mulling plate, which could have provided a much smoother texture. Further tweaks and experimentations would still be much needed! Other factors to consider would how the paint dries since generic oil paints uses linseed oil which is considered a “drying” oil.
Most of the makeup we received were hydrophobic. It has the tendency to float and resist mixing evenly with water, probably due to the content of wax within the make up ingredients. Painting with a brush and water makes it difficult to control the painting process as the pigment spreads unevenly.
With this trait in mind, we pivoted towards reworking the makeup powder into wax crayons, where it was much more easier to readjust the existing wax and pigment present in the makeup into a crayon-like texture instead.
We were able to get hold of a substantial amount of expired makeup, especially ones that are considered “odd” colours, such as blues, greens and bright pinks. These were eventually repurposed and used for a subsequent art workshop.
Whilst this experiment didn’t revolve around plant pigments, we surely felt like we made up for at least some of the time lost working with expired makeup.
Upcoming Public Events:
Come explore a new medium with us!
Rice as Binder (open making session)
As part of “Tales as New as Time”
Jurong Regional Library Programme Zone
22nd February, 1 to 5pm
Event details and Registration: Link
This will be the final making session that we are hosting as part of this exhibition. Hope to see you there!
Masak on,
Shirin (and Liz)