Izayoi's Compact

I've been thinking about doing this for a very long time, and now I finally have some bits together to try doing it with. I want to recreate Izayoi's lip rouge compact, as close as is possible to do.

In this picture are three kinds of shells that are closest in appearance and size to the one InuYasha held in his hand. The scallop shells have the the advantage of being findable in matched pairs that fit together perfectly. BUT, they are boldly patterned, as you can see in the examples. I even tried to "bleach" the color out using really strong peroxide, (real chlorine bleach is noxious in addition to actually destroying the structure of the shell over time), but the peroxide made only about 10 percent of the color go away after three days of soaking.

There are white scallop-style shells, but they have a very high arch in the "cup" and they don't mesh together at all.

Then there are the "cat's paw" or "kitten's paw" shells. They are white, they look damn near identical to what appears in the cartoon, but I don't have but about 5 of them, and that's not a big enough sample number to get a decent pair out of. So, I'm going to send my agent in Florida back over to the tourist traps to look for shells again. I thank her with all my heart for the first batch she found for me!!!

Anyway, I have enough to practice on, so I drilled a pair out with my Dremel tool and threaded some silk ribbon through. One problem I can see right off is how to tie the ribbon or cord so that the shell is hinged as neatly as possible. Simply looping it through and tying it may not be enough, especially if you want to be able to open it and close it during say, cosplay events.

At the moment, I'm thinking of creating several versions of it:

One that does not open at all.

One that opens, but has a fake (possibly Sculpey) blob of "rouge" in it, so that it looks like the original both open and closed.

One that contains real lipstick. (I even bought a nice red lipstick that I'm going to try to melt and "recast" within half of a shell.

If working with real shells turns out to be unworkable, I might just make a mold of one of the best ones and create my own castings that will do the job. But that would be a desperation move, and I have a lot of things I can try first.

Anyway, if I do get it figured out, I will offer some for sale for the cosplayers. It would make for some GREAT photo ops.

(The image of InuYasha's hand is a screencap and thus belongs to Viz and Sunrise.)