little white truths

So... 

Funny story.

You may have heard me mention that my husband was away for four days this week on business, and he went away for four days last week as well - meaning he was only back for two days before leaving again.

Thankfully he returned last night so I'm not flying solo anymore with two sick, teething kids, but I won't lie: it's been a tough couple of weeks. Both kids have been grumpy, needy and exhaused - and there's two of them and one of me. There's been a lot of screaming. I've had to draw on levels of patience I didn't know I had.

I wasn't patient with this bronzer. That's my introduction to this post.

Let's wind back. On Friday Mum arrived to take my daughter for the afternoon (thank christ) and I was expecting to spend those hours getting domestic rubbish done with one arm, which is what I've had to do this past week because my son is extra needy when he's sick and doesn't like me putting him down or leaving the room.

This means I've been sweeping and cooking with one hand while holding him in the other, but on Friday arvo he was happy playing on his mat and I COULD have used that time to lie on the couch or do something useful, but instead my pent-up frustration got the better of me and my eyes fell on this bronzer.

I wanted to de-pot it. I was desperate to de-pot it. I would de-pot it if it killed me.

As you may know, it's not my favourite bronzer (there's nothing wrong with it, it's just not the best shade for me: see review here) so I've been considering decluttering it or panning it next year.

Since neither Mum nor my sister wanted it, I looked on it yesterday with the feeling of a parent who's been all zen for the kids but then finds the nearest punching bag at the gym.

I would depot this bronzer so I could put it into a magnetic palette for panning next year. I already knew that it wouldn't come out easily because I'd attempted popping it out with my instrument before, but this time it wouldn't win.

I would beat it into submission. It would do what I told it to do, since my toddler never did. 

There's how my bronzer used to look above and below, when it was all nice and brand new. Gosh, if only it knew what was in store for it...

Since I have any number of kids' Panadol 'syringes' on hand these days, I took a clean one and drew up 2ml of rubbing alcohol inside it. I'd dispensed about 5ml of alcohol into a little container in order to do this, so I had some leftover in the container if I needed it.

I didn't 'need' it. But I ended up using it anyway.

I then dispensed my 2ml of rubbing alcohol down the sides of the pan. Most of it went underneath as intended, but a little bit welled up around the edges and stained that very outer rim of the bronzer. 

And you know what happened then?

That rim started to lift itself from the pan. I couldn't believe it. Quickly I got out some kitchen paper and pressed it back down. Then I took my instrument again and hoped that the rubbing alcohol had loosened the glue beneath the pan.

It hadn't, but attempting to shift the pan caused that upper right-hand quarter of the product to start lifting itself from said pan (you'll see what I mean in the final photos below).

The above and below photos show my bronzer at the start of this denting period (12 August 2017; intro post here).

As a side note: before attempting to depot this bronzer I'd already taken to it with sticky tape at least four times. You may remember my mentioning the hard-pan that had formed around the rim with the beads (you can see that above), and while the sticky tape had worked a little, it hadn't lifted all of the dreaded 'greyscale': this is one of the reasons why I was angry with this bronzer.

Anyhoo. The top right quarter of the bronzer had lifted itself from the pan (just the upper half), so I doused this area with spare rubbing alcohol and pressed it back down. By then my anger had flared and I threw the rest of the alcohol I'd dispensed earlier over the whole thing. Some of it went down the sides and some of it went over the product. I then left it for a moment while I handed my grizzling son his bottle of water.

He stopped grizzling and drank. I went back to the bronzer and grabbed my instrument.

One last time, I thought, flexing my wrists.

My instrument went down the sides of the pan again. I wriggled it. For the first time during this whole process, the pan shifted - ever so slightly. Bingo, I thought, and used more grunt.

Long story short, I heaved and heaved and heaved until I got the pan out. By now I was yelling at the thing and half-laughing at the same time, kind of like I did before the childbirth contractions really set in.

When it finally rose clean off the glue, I was laughing and cheering like a madman. My son was giggling and squealing along.

The only problem with the de-potting process is that the pan had warped. I really hate that. So that same butchered corner was high up in the air while the rest of the pan had stayed flat. I couldn't bend it back into shape with my hands, but I wasn't giving up just yet.

Above and below is how my bronzer looked when I first de-potted it. The below shot is enhanced for clarity.

What I did then was wrap the product in kitchen paper (I needed to press it firmly anyway) and then covered it with a cloth. I put two of my heaviest dictionaries over it and stood on the thing.

I checked my handiwork. Sixty kilos of woman and two heavy books wasn't enough to flatten the pan, so up I got again and started jumping on it, stamping it with my foot.

Gosh that felt good.

And it worked. Well, it worked well enough. The pan is now as flat as it will likely ever be, and it's flat enough to put in a magnetic palette, which was my aim anyway so I'll live with that.

Below is how my bronzer looked once it had dried (I put it over the heater to speed up this process).

And here's how it looks now, after I used it again for the first time yesterday: 

Same shot, enhanced for clarity:

In sum

So yes, I've depotted this bronzer. That's my update.

I'll now continue to use it until the end of the denting period, and I'll then pan it next year.

Given that I've now developed a relationship with this bronzer, I'm actually looking forward to it.

The end.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon ; )