Needle holder aka lipstick

2-3 years ago, as one of my lipsticks wore down to the casing, I wondered if it would be possible to recycle it as a needle holder. These are handy. I have one (left) that had been given to me, and I use it.. 

The clean casings are no doubt purchased cheaply in bulk. I decided to give recycling a go.

Step one was to find the lip brush I knew I had. That done, I used it to apply the lipstick still in the lower part of the casing. It took quite a while, several years. For the last few months it’s the only lipstick I’ve used, so I could hasten the process. 

Today it was done. There was no longer enough colour on the brush to apply to my lips.That did not, however, mean the cavity was clean. Lipstick is persistent, sticky stuff. It clings to brushes, resists soap and detergents.

As I needed the casing to be as clean as possible, I used tissues and bamboo buds - a lot more than is pictured here.

I repeated the process over and over. I tried wet wipes. I tried detergent. Eventually I reached a point where tissue emerged almost clean.                                    

I hadn’t expected that lipstick would have found its way underneath the clear plastic casing in which it sits. 

While I could remove some of that with paper, some remained embedded below, impossible to get to.

When all accessible surfaces were clear of lipstick, I constructed an insert of wool fibre and a little lid from red velvet. Seemed appropriate. It was very fiddly to insert. 

I used Aquadhere around the edges - not a very exact process, given the space in which it is required.

It works. It is useful. Is it worth the effort? Probably not. 

My grandparent, and parents were adept at such conversions, using something that was to be discarded to create something useful, usually something they couldn’t afford. 

I don’t need to do that, but I do want to reduce waste, especially discarded plastic going to landfill. OK, it's small. but it's hard to recycle, and there are a lot out there.

I have another useful needle holder. I extended the life of lipstick that was perfectly good but needed a brush to access. However, in the conversion, as well as detergent, I used tissues and cotton buds (on bamboo sticks) in quantity. On balance I don’t think I did a lot to help the environment. 

Looks like I’ll have to find a cosmetic zero waste box in the unlikely event that I ever use up and discard one of my remaining 4 lipsticks!