Depotting UD Book of Shadows and Why Depot?

I've been on a major decluttering and organizing kick since the end of December. I've been donating clothes and pulling household items for a town-wide auction 'o everyone's junk that my fiance and I attend every year.

In my makeup stash, there's a few things that I've been doing to help organize and declutter. I've been working my way through trying products in order to decide if I'm going to keep them around or not (several bronzers have been cut from my stash). I also went on a major depotting spree. I already did a post about a DYI freestyle palette, but I also recently picked up some Z Palettes since they had some on sale.

I didn't do a very good job taking pictures of the depotting process because I was honestly more concerned with actually getting items depotted. I also found that depotting Urban Decay shadows from cardboard packaging isn't all that difficult.

Things you'll need to depot an Urban Decay Book of Shadows:

• A prying tool of some sort (I'll show a picture of mine shortly)
• Rubbing alcohol
• Cotton balls/cotton pads
• Something to protect the surface you are working on (I used paper plates)
• Labels (optional - I prefer 3/4 inch removable, round labels - they fit well on most of the products I've depotted)

 My particular prying tool was a small flathead screwdriver that was included in a all-in-one tool kit my mom gave me a few years ago. I wish the tip had been skinnier, but it served its purpose.

 The above picture is what remained after I mangled my Book of Shadows IV. My particular method of depotting was to peel away the layers of cardboard from the top until I could get underneath the shadows to pry them up (Tip: if you aren't confident that you will remember the names of the shadows, write out the labels before you start ripping the cardboard apart.).

Once I got as much cardboard pulled up as I could, I just slide my mini screwdriver underneath the pan and gently pushed up. You can kind of see in the pictures that most of them came up relatively easily since the purple overlay on the cardboard didn't come up on most of them. I had a little bit of trouble with the top row of shadows wanting to crack, but I'm almost positive that it is because I initially didn't peel up enough of the cardboard at the top of the palette. The shadows that had started to crack were easily saved since Urban Decay shadows are so buttery; I just had to gently press them back into place.

After I had the pans pulled up, I placed them on a paper plate. I was careful to keep them in the same order they were in while still in the palette so I could label them correctly. I used rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad to rub away the leftover glue. On some of the UD palettes I depotted, getting rid of the glue wasn't a big deal. The pans from the first Dangerous Palette were a pain in the butt to get clean. I read elsewhere about someone using Goo Gone to help remove the glue. I tried it, but it didn't seem to work very well, and I was afraid of getting the Goo Gone on the eye shadow, which wouldn't have been a good thing.

 Here's a look at a labeled eye shadow pan so you can see what my labels looked like.

As for why to depot? Take a look:

This is a size comparison between the original Book of Shadows IV and my new palette. Depotting can be a HUGE space saver. The downside is that you lose the special packaging, but if you aren't overly concerned about that part, you can really condense your collection without getting rid of products. 

 Are you a fan of depotting or do you like to keep everything in its original packaging?