I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say there's nothing more heartbreaking than opening your compact to find your favorite eye shadow or blush has busted. Besides spilling all over your purse (more on that later), the cash you spent on your beloved beauty product has now gone to waste and you're without your must-have makeup. Or are you? Before tossing your broken beauty products, try these quick, cheap solutions. From crumbled cosmetics and dried out nail polish to impenetrable aerosol cans, we'll show you (and you'll show everyone else!) that you're not crazy for holding onto that nail polish bottle that hasn't opened for at least three years.

Problem: Your eye shadow, blush, or powder is smashed to smithereens. Every time you open it, you're covered in the powdery stuff, and your expensive makeup is going to waste.

There are a number of ways to salvage that broken mess of a compact.

Solution 1: Rubbing Alcohol

To restore the powder to its original consolidated form, mix it with just a little rubbing alcohol. You'll need to completely crush the powder -- it won't work if just a piece is broken off. To avoid a mess, crush the makeup in a plastic bag. After transferring your mixture back to the container, add a few drops of alcohol and allow it to stabilize for a few hours. Once it's dry, I recommend pressing it back together with a coin wrapped in fabric -- this will give it a new, pressed look and will get rid of any air bubbles that cause it to be unstable. I also tried hand sanitizer in place of alcohol, and it worked just as well -- just make sure it's at least 70% alcohol.

For a step-by-step video guide, check out Michelle Phan's tutorial on how to fix broken makeup.

If you want to repurpose your broken shadow, mix a little shadow with Vaseline for a pigmented gloss. When I tried this, the sheen ended up being somewhere between a lip gloss and a lipstick. I'd recommend this if you want to create a custom color or wear a crazy hue (like blue, green, or black) for the night -- it beats purchasing an entire tube of lipstick you'll only wear a few times. You can also use clear lip balm if you don't have Vaseline, but Vaseline is definitely the cheapest route. You can get a travel-sized container at the drugstore for around two bucks. Oh, and for those who are worried about eating eye shadow: I used a very pigmented eye shadow from MAC so I didn't need to use much product for a concentrated color. I checked the ingredients to make sure they were safe for the lips -- none are any more dangerous than the ingredients used in most lipsticks.

While some of my research suggests using baby oil to create a "wet look" eye shadow, I found it collected in my eye lid crease almost immediately. But if you're trying to create a high-fashion look for a photo shoot or other quickie event, it'll work in a pinch. Check out this DIY tutorial to see for yourself.

If you want to completely scrap your eye shadow, you can turn it into nail polish just by adding clear nail polish to the powder. I recommend mixing the polish and the shadow outside of the bottle and storing it in an airtight container, so you don't use an entire bottle of clear nail polish on one eye shadow color. We tried mixing our own polishes over at Beauty Riot -- click to see what crazy colors we came up with.