How To Fix a Broken/Smashed Highlighter – Easy and Simple
I did a bad thing. I was stupid. I left my brand new highlighter on the arm of a chair – and it fell on the floor. The hard wooden, this thing didn’t stand a chance kinda floor. A couple of weeks ago I saw Huda Beauty post on instagram a video of her dropping a palette on the floor and her reaction afterwards – that was me!
I didn’t manage to save every last little bit from the floor, but I was kinda glad the packaging was still intact and thought maybe I’d just carefully use the broken pieces in the pan. That was when I stumbled upon some ideas for fixing it!
Just a little disclaimer – I did not come up with this fixing technique, I just found it on lots of different sites across the internet, thus I didn’t know who to credit. I’m just sharing it with all you guys so it can maybe help you in the future not only save some money, but also save on waste.
Before you start, I would definitely recommend covering your work surface with paper or something easy to clean, as this can get messy. It’s also a good idea not to wear your best clothes!
The highlighter in question is the Barry M Baked Tri-Blend Highlighter in the shade Silver Solstice which is £6.49 from Superdrug.
Step 1 – Smash It!
This is probably the most fun part of the process, breaking the whole thing up into a uniform sized, fine powder. You can use anything to do this like a cotton bud or a cocktail stick. I personally used a very old hair chopstick (remember when they were in fashion!!?). This took about ten minutes to do, but with this particular highlighter being tri-coloured I wanted to mix the colours together well.
Step 2 – Add Surgical Spirits/Rubbing Alcohol
This is where things get a little bit more messy.
Once the powder is of a fairly good consistency it’s time to start adding the Surgical Spirits or as I believe they call it in the US, Rubbing Alcohol. I managed to buy my standard sized bottle from my local pharmacy for under £2. It can be used for lots of things and this particular project barely used a cap full so it’s pretty good value for money.
I used a small amount at a time, mixing it in with my chopstick until it came to the texture of something just a bit thicker than a liquid highlighter or maybe a thick pancake batter.
Step 3 – Press It
This part was a bit of trial and error. Pressing the product, I initially started by covering a large bottle top from my Micellar Water in cling film. This protected the lid from getting dirty but hardly pressed the product (and a lot stuck to the cling film). The smell of Surgical Spirits is pretty strong and so I decided to let the mixture dry off for an hour.
An hour later and the mixture looked pretty similar. I took the cling film off the lid and instead placed a tissue over the highlighter (I’ve seen a lot of people use a piece of cloth which I assume would work just as well). This technique worked perfectly, both pressing the mixture into the pan and soaking up the excess Surgical Spirits.
And here’s the finished result. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. I did cave and buy another highlighter. In my defence I did like using this with the different colours separately and obviously this can’t be done with the now very pink mixed version.
It did go a lot more pink than I was expecting considering the small amount of pink in the centre of the original, I’m kind of undecided as to whether it’s become a super sparkly blusher or whether I can still use it as a highlighter. The texture is still super smooth but even after a week it still has the smell of Surgical Spirits and having added this I will not be putting this around my eye area.
Overall, I’m pretty impressed with my first ever attempt at fixing a broken highlighter and I would definitely do it again in the same situation. There’s no point wasting something that can still be used.
Sophie x
This post has been re-uploaded and edited from its original posting on the 1st February 2019