MAC Eyes on MAC (2017): Solar Glow Times Nine Eyeshadow x 9 Palette

on
Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Two weeks ago, MAC released their anniversary collection for Eyes on MAC, which is their annual eyeshadow palette extension launch. This year's Eyes on MAC collection features a total of ten eye products: two 15-pan eyeshadow palettes, six nine-pan eyeshadow palettes, and two eye brushes. Of the ten products, there are two new and permanent nine-pan eyeshadow palettes. The Solar Glow Times Nine Palette is described as "A well-edited palette of frosty metallic hues offering countless colour combinations. Textures range from veluxe pearl to lustre to frost. The saturated soft and smooth shades are packaged in one pocket-sized compact for easy portability." It is housed in a regular black rectangular clear-lidded compact with the MAC logo on the lid. Each Eyeshadow x 9 Palette contains a total of 7.2 grams of product, and retails for $42.

Moon Rock, Copper Aura, and Blackberry

Moon Rock is a light cool beige with gold sparkle in a Veluxe Pearl finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette. It has a slightly chunkier, more gritty texture, but goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. Due to the texture, it can be layered easily but there will be fall out when blending. It is cooler than Pastelluxe #1, cooler and more glittery than Nylon, and warmer and less glittery than She Sparkles.
Copper Aura is a light-medium warm muted peachy copper with peach sparkle in a Lustre finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette. It has a chunky, more gritty texture, and can go on patchy and unevenly. It has medium pigmentation and semi-sheer to semi-opaque buildable colour pay-off. Due to the texture, it can be layered easily but there will be fall out when blending. It is more peach than Honey Lust, lighter and more peach than Mythology, and darker and more peach than Last Dance.
Blackberry is a medium-deep cool muted plummy brown in a Matte finish. This is a permanent shade. It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is darker and more purple than Quarry, darker and cooler than Haux, and lighter and more muted than Sketch.

Sugared, Quarry, and Metalmauve

Sugared is a light icy pink with white and pink sparkle in a Lustre finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette. It has a chunky, more gritty texture, and can go on patchy and unevenly. It has low-medium pigmentation and sheer to semi-sheer buildable colour pay-off. Due to the texture, it can be layered easily but there will be fall out when blending. It is lighter and cooler than Last Dance, slightly cooler than Pastelluxe #2, and lighter and more glittery than Sweet Lust.
Quarry is a medium-dark cool mauve-brown in a Matte finish. This is a permanent shade. It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is darker and cooler than Haux, lighter and cooler than Blackberry, and more brown and more matte than Shale.
Metalmauve is a medium-dark cool mauve in a Frost finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette. It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is lighter than Stolen Moment, darker and cooler than Smoky Mauve, and more purple than Satin Taupe.

Cosmic, Soot, and Lunar Cycle

Cosmic is a light-medium cool gilded pewter with silver sparkle in a Frost finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette (not to be mistaken for the eyeshadow with the same name from 2007's Moonbathe collection). It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is warmer than Silver Ring, darker and cooler than Retrospeck, and warmer and more silver than Silver Sun.
Soot is a deep-dark cool taupe-brown in a Matte finish. This is a permanent shade. It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is cooler than Brun, more brown than Concrete, and more muted than Dance in the Dark.
Lunar Cycle is a light-medium sage-grey with mint green pearl in a Frost finish. This is a new and permanent shade in this palette. It has a soft, finely-milled texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has low pigmentation and sheer to semi-sheer colour pay-off. It is difficult to layer, but easy to blend out. It is much sheerer and more grey than Silver Sun, lighter and cooler than Greensmoke, and cooler than Greenluxe #3.

The colour wave of Solar Glow is actually quite nice — neutral to cool and quite sparkly, but wearable and flattering on many skintones — and I like that there are three really smooth, pigmented mattes to help ground the six other shades. What I have issues with, however, is the texture of the really sparkly shades. Now, Lustre eyeshadows have always been known to have a sheer colour pay-off with a gritty consistency, so it's not so surprising that Copper Aura and Sugared have that chunkier, patchier finish. But it's odd that Moon Rock, a Veluxe Pearl which is known for a smooth, metallic finish, also performs this way, to the point where I think it was mislabeled. Moreover, Lunar Cycle is really sheer — it's immensely difficult to layer and gives a semi-sheer colour pay-off at most — which is unusual for a Frost finish eyeshadow because they're usually really pigmented (like Metalmauve and Cosmic, both of which perform beautifully). The chunkier eyeshadows aren't impossible to use, of course, but they do require more work, and I recommend using a tackier eye base or even a glitter glue to help them adhere better to the lid, and a flat synthetic brush (like a MAC 242) or even your finger to help pack it on with minimal fall out. If you like the Veluxe Pearlfusion palettes (which have a similar, if not identical, texture to the sparkly shades here), you might like Solar Glow — and the addition of matte shades will help create much more versatile, dimensional looks — but as it is, with four of the nine shades performing poorly without significantly more effort, you might be better off selecting MAC's single eyeshadows that are similar but apply better, especially since all the matte shades in Solar Glow can already be found in the permanent range.
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