Beauty products are expensive, and it’s frustrating when a lipstick breaks, an eyeshadow shatters or nail polish tops just won’t come undone. So if you have butterfingers and dropped a pressed powder eye shadow or blush on the tile, listen up. Don’t throw out the compact. Grab a plastic sandwich bag and dump the powdery stuff into it. Mash it up with the back of a butter knife of the flat blade of scissors until it’s a dusty consistency. Add it back to the compact and add a few drops of rubbing alcohol until it’s damp throughout. Lay a piece of tissue over the powder and begin to press it, compacting the powder back into the container, with your butter knife or scissors. Leave the compact open to dry, and your pressed powder will be good as new! As for those sticky nail polish bottles that you think will never come undone, prevent it before it happens by taking a few minutes to fix it up post-manicure.

Put your freshly polished fingers into a sandwich bag to protect them, and remove any nail polish from the top of the polish bottle with remover and a cotton ball. Apply Vaseline to where the bottle and brush meet. It should keep your polish top lubricated for the next manicure. And don’t panic if your favorite lipstick breaks right off the tube. Place the broken-off piece in a sandwich bag and leave in the freezer for 10 minutes to allow it to harden. Look at the broken piece and place where it broke off to figure out where to replace it – like a puzzle piece. Take a lighter and warm the bottom of the broken piece. Fit it back in the tube, and put the whole thing back in the freezer to solidify. That’s all you need to do to breathe life into your broken cosmetics!