MAC Ice Parade: Snowglobe Eyeshadows in Sultry

MAC released their holiday sets collection last Thursday, called Ice Parade. Ice Parade will see the release of three eyeshadow palettes. Each palette includes six eyeshadow shades and a mini 213SE brush. The Sultry palette includes the following shades: Lightfully, Trax, Fun!, Festive Delight, Black Tied, and Shadowy Lady. Each palette includes a total of 6 grams of product, comes in a limited edition glossy white compact featuring a silver reflective "snowglobe" on the cover and a mirror on the inside, and retails for $45.50.

Lightfully, Trax, Fun!, Festive Delight, Black Tied, and Shadowy Lady

Lightfully is a shimmery pale pink-tinged white in a Lustre finish. It is limited edition and a re-promoted shade from 2007's Lightful collection. It goes on powdery and uneven. The colour pay-off is also sheer, so a lot of layering is required to get it near pan colour. Because it is so sheer, the pink tint you see in the pan doesn't translate on to skin. It is similar to Forgery.

Trax is a medium red-toned violet with gold and copper shimmer. It is a permanent shade. It has a soft texture and goes on quite smoothly, but the shimmer is prone to fall out, so it doesn't translate well on the skin. The pigmentation is good and has opaque colour pay-off. It's less brown than Star Violet.

Fun! is a medium pink-copper with gold shimmer in a Lustre finish. It is a new and limited edition shade. It goes on chunky and powdery with a lot of fall out. The colour pay-off is really sheer, and I found that I really had to pack it on to get it to look even remotely like the pan colour in an arm swatch. It does, however, show up quite well on the eye. It is lighter and more pink than Mythology.

Festive Delight is a vibrant medium-dark berry violet with pink shimmer in a Lustre finish. It is a new and limited edition shade. It goes on smoothly and doesn't have the grittiness of most other Lustre eyeshadows, so there is little to no fall out. The pigmentation is good and has opaque colour pay-off. It is slightly darker than Cranberry.

Black Tied is black with silver shimmer in a Velvet finish. It is a permanent shade. It's on the drier, stiffer side, so it goes on a little unevenly. The pigmentation is semi-sheer, but it can build up easily to achieve opaque colour pay-off. This shade works better on the eye than in a swatch. It is Carbon with shimmer.

Shadowy Lady is blackened burgundy-plum in a Matte finish. It is a permanent shade. It goes on smooth and pigmented with opaque colour pay-off. It's darker and more purple than Sketch.

As much as I wanted to love this palette, I was kind of disappointed. First of all, three of the six shades are permanent. Secondly, only three of the six shades have excellent pigmentation and blendability. The other three suffer from poor-to-mediocre pigmentation and sheer colour pay-off. They should have put Pink Freeze or Seedy Pearl instead of Lightfully, because the pink in Lightfully doesn't even show up on the eye or in a swatch. While Black Tied isn't actually that bad in execution (I use it occasionally when I want to darken a smoky eye), the shimmer doesn't translate well on the skin, so you're better off using Carbon, anyhow. Fun! was terrible in the swatch but worked fairly well on the eye, as long as it's padded on and used on top of a good primer. Lustre eyeshadows can be difficult to use because of the grittier texture and resulting fall out, but they're really terrible here. The only stand out shade here was Festive Delight, but it looks very similar to Cranberry. You're better off spending the extra money getting similar shades (or the same shades) from the permanent line-up.