MAC Baking Beauties: Pearlmatte Face Powders

Last Thursday, MAC released a new collection called Baking Beauties. This collection was inspired by "everything about a cupcake; from the ruffled liner and creamy rosettes to shimmering sprinkles. It's this air of confectionery bliss that frosts eyes, lips, and nails in colours of irresistible lusciousness." This collection sees the release of 24 products —15 of which are new and limited edition, one of which is a re-promote, and eight of which are permanent. Baking Beauties includes two new and limited edition Pearlmatte Face Powders, which combine "pearlized and satin shades… to achieve an array of looks with a rich texture and velvet finish... for highlighting and blush effects." Each powder features an "exclusively designed cupcake pattern." Each Pearlmatte Face Powder comes in regular black packaging, contains 12 grams of product, and retails for $34.

In for a Treat

In for a Treat features a light warm peachy champagne base and a white overspray border, with medium-dark reddened coral flowers in a matte finish and light-medium mint green leaves in a satin finish. When swirled together, it creates a light peachy champagne beige with golden champagne shimmer-sheen. This is a new and limited edition shade. The texture is soft and silky, and it goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque to opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is warmer and slightly darker than Lightscapade Mineralize Skinfinish, and slightly lighter and less metallic than Soft and Gentle Mineralize Skinfinish.

Pink Buttercream

Pink Buttercream features a light silvered pink base and a white overspray border, with medium-dark cool-toned pink flowers in a matte finish and light periwinkle blue leaves in a satin finish. When swirled together, it creates a light cool-toned pink with soft silver-white shimmer-sheen. This is a new and limited edition shade. The texture is soft and silky, and it goes on smoothly and evenly. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque to opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is much cooler and more pink than Lightscapade Mineralize Skinfinish, and lighter than Veronica's Blush.

In for a Treat and Pink Buttercream

I actually really love the texture of Pearlmatte Face Powders in general — they're very soft and finely-milled so they go on really smoothly with good colour pay-off. I like that they mix two different finishes, too, so that they're not overly metallic. That having been said, I can't really see either of these shades being used solely as a blush, even on the most fairest of complexions. They're excellent as highlighters and to add an overall illumination to the face (I like using them on top of really bright or dark blushes to give them a glowy, buffed effect). I advise using a light hand if you want to dust it all over the face, since the more you put on, the more metallic the finish (however, if you want the "disco ball" effect, by all means, pile it on!).

In the swatch photo above, it doesn't look like there's much of a difference between the two shades, but In for a Treat is definitely much warmer than Pink Buttercream, so for those who like a peachier tone in their highlighters, In for a Treat is more ideal. Likewise, for those who want a cooler, more pink tone to their highlighters, Pink Buttercream is the one to go for. In for a Treat works beautifully as a highlighter on all skintones, and I didn't find that it looked ashy on darker skintones at all. However, due to the coolness of Pink Buttercream, I find it better suited for fair to light complexions. On that note, I wouldn't say that either of these are necessarily must-haves — they're nice to have as novelty items because of the cute designs, but aside from that, the shades themselves aren't particularly unique, and MAC has released many highlighting shades like these before.