MAC Flamingo Park: Beauty Powder in Sunny Surprise and Pearl Blossom

This Thursday, MAC will launch their major Spring colour collection called Flamingo Park, inspired by "a picnic... a park... a girl of whimsy with a sweet tooth... unexpected guests... a curious flamingo! That's spring, it's an adventure. A little sugar goes a long way... a merry pink flock joins her feathered friend... the whole park goes to the birds... Plunge into the punch pleasures of pink in a freshly made batch of scrumptious colours that let you have your cake, and wear it, too." There is a total of 36 products, of which 18 are new and limited edition, five are re-promotes, and 13 are permanent. Flamingo Park will see the launch of two new and limited edition shades of Beauty Powder, which is described as "a silky-soft 'beauty' powder that's delicately tinted and luxuriously pearl. Goes on as an ultra-fine, shimmering 'veil' to the skin. Can be applied as a highlight, soft blush, or overall finish." Each powder is housed in a regular black mirrored compact, contains 10 grams of product, and retails for $26. 
Sunny Surprise and Pearl Blossom
Sunny Surprise and Pearl Blossom

Sunny Surprise is a light-medium warm soft orangey peach with a subtle pearlized sheen in a satin finish. This is a new and limited edition shade. It has a soft, silky texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium pigmentation and semi-sheer to semi-opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter and less frosted than Style Powder Blush, lighter and more frosted than Peaches Powder Blush, and more orange and less shimmery than New Romance Mineralize Blush.

Pearl Blossom is a light-medium cool-toned pink with a silver frosted sheen. This is a re-promoted shade from 2007's Barbie Loves MAC collection, and is limited edition. It has a soft, silky texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium pigmentation and semi-sheer to semi-opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is cooler and more pink than Soft and Gentle Mineralize Skinfinish, more pink and more frosted than Lightscapade Mineralize Skinfinish, and lighter and much more frosted than Well Dressed Powder Blush.

A lot of people get confused as how to use Beauty Powders; are they highlighters, blushes, or all-over finishing powders? Well, all of the above, really. Depending on the colour of the powder and your skintone, you can use them as you see fit. What I love about Beauty Powders is that they have a really soft, smooth, finely-milled texture with a lovely soft pearlized sheen that make them super easy to use and provide a beautiful lit-from-within illumination. Sunny Surprise works beautifully as a soft blush on fair to medium skintones, and more so as a highlighter on dark to deep dark skintones, but will add a warm brightening effect to all complexions. Pearl Blossom generally works better as a highlighter or skin finisher since it has such a strong frost finish, but though those who are very fair can definitely use it as a blush, too. Both shades work beautifully layered with the bright blush shades that are launching with this collection to create more fresh-faced, diffused pops of colour. Long-time MAC fans may already have Pearl Blossom as it's a re-promote from 2007's MAC Loves Barbie collection or last year's MAC is Beauty collection, but if you don't have it or have been waiting for this to be re-promoted, it's definitely worth snatching up now — it's widely flattering and very different from what MAC offers permanently, and at $26 for 10 grams of product, also significantly less expensive than the last time it was launched.