Refilling vintage powder compacts

It all started with the pure need for some more powdered foundation and I never thought it would end up in refilling one of my vintage compacts. In York there's a discount beauty shop called Zest [you'll find it mid way between Superdrug and Boots] where they tend to sell lesser known products or discounted lines. I'd eyed up the Max Factor Creme Puff foundation  for a mere £3.99 and thought bargain!

This Max Factor Creme Puff works out to the the perfect size for refilling and replacing powder in your vintage compacts. It even helps that the foundation pan, with a little digging out [with a little help with something sharp and pointy - mind your fingers!] is very easy to part from the plastic casing. Now you just need to find a vintage powder compact ...

Your best working with a post 1950 circular vintage powder compact - they are not only more regular in size in comparison to foundations that are available on the market today, but it means you can reuse compacts that are more readily available and are therefore cheaper to get hold of and you won't be risking using an older more rarer compact. The compact I chose to use is one i've apparently never mentioned on my blog before. I found it with a Melissa compact in a local compact shop priced at £5. Branded wise it's unmarked with only a "made in England" stamped around the mirrored rim, but the cover emalling was in perfect condition. I only had one other compact that this Max Factor powder would have fitted - one of my first that I rescued from my gran, it would have been a sweet idea to have brought new life and re used it, but I didn't want to risk the foundation damaging the already old Stratton compact.

After removing the foundation pan from your new foundation just pop it into your compact, there's no need to stick or glue it in place especially if your compact as a circular holder in place, any adhesive may even ruin the bottom of the compact.

Finally just click the holder back into place and your all ready to reuse your compact! A really helpful website/blog is The Powder Compact Dairies which has headed up a guide of other suitable modern foundations which you can use if your tempted. Aside from the Creme Puff by Max Factor, your looking for pans with a 67mm diameter, this includes Rimmel Stay Matte and Estee Lauder Lucidity. If you have a smaller pan (say the 59mm diameter) then have a look into using foundations by Boots 17, MAC, Benefit, Lancome and Bourjois.

What do you think? Have you ever given new life to a vintage beauty piece? Would you be tempted too?