MAC RiRi ♥ MAC Fall: Smoked Cocoa Eyeshadow Palette

This past week, MAC released a new collection in collaboration with Rihanna called RiRi ♥ MAC Fall. It is the second collection that was created by Rihanna for MAC, and is one of three colour collaboration collections (one collection was launched in the summer, and the last one will be launched in-stores for holiday). RiRi ♥ MAC Fall consists of 20 products, and sees the release of two new and limited edition eyeshadow palettes. Each palette consists of four shades of powder eyeshadow, and is housed in special edition metallic rose gold packaging featuring Rihanna's signature and logo in various shades of pink with matching secondary cardstock packaging. Each eyeshadow palette contains 5.6 grams of product, and retails for $52.50.
Smoked Cocoa
Smoked Cocoa

Smoked Cocoa #1 is a pale cool-toned cream-white in a Veluxe Pearl finish. This is a new and limited edition shade. It has a soft, silky 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 and cooler than Dazzlelight, and brighter and more frosted than Shroom.

Smoked Cocoa #2 is a medium grey-taupe in a Matte² finish. This is a new and limited edition shade. It has a soft, silky 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 and more brown than Scene, and similar to Copperplate.

Smoked Cocoa #3 is a dark black base with fine silver sparkle in a Lustre finish. This is a new and limited edition shade. It has a drier, stiffer texture, and can go on patchy and unevenly as a result. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is similar to Black Tied, and more sparkly than Carbon.

Smoked Cocoa #4 is a dark blue-toned black in a Satin finish. This is a new and limited edition shade. It has a drier, stiffer texture, and can go on patchy and unevenly as a result. It has medium-high pigmentation and semi-opaque colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is less blue than Nehru, and more blue than Carbon.

Okay, upon looking at this palette, my first impression was, "Boooooring." MAC has released a ton of palettes like this before, and you can definitely build your own palette at a MAC Store with incredibly similar shades. Upon swatching them, I was impressed with the two lighter shades, and then super disappointed with the two darker shades because they just did not translate well on the skin. However, I will say that despite all the backlash that this palette has received, it works way, way, way better in execution on the eye than it does in a swatch. The two lighter shades go on beautifully, of course — smooth and pigmented and blend out like a dream. Surprisingly, though, the two darker shades, while much stiffer, actually don't take much effort to work with. They are similar to the texture of Carbon, really; not impressive, but easily layerable and blendable. The trick here is to use the right brushes; I like using a stiffer brush like MAC's #219 to pack on the shade and then using a fluffier brush like MAC's #217 to blend it out.

You can definitely create a really gorgeous smoky eye with these shades. I was pleased to see that these shades weren't too cool-toned, either — the addition of a taupe rather than straight-up grey or silver really makes this palette quite neutral and very wearable across all skintones. For the avid MAC or make-up consumer, this palette is entirely skippable, but it's actually a really nice one to have on hand for classic smoky eyes if you don't already have something similar. And, of course, for those who had to get their hands on this collection or anything Rihanna-related, this will already have been a must-have.