Today, MAC released their major annual Spring colour collection called MAC Is Beauty, inspired by spas, salons, and "a world of pure, delicious vanity, where you can preen supreme to get that wow factor, emerging perfectly coiffed, polished, and all glammed up. What's wrong with being a little high-maintenance?" The entire collection features a total of 49 products, of which 18 are new and limited edition, 13 are re-promotes, 10 are permanent, five are re-promotes and will become permanent, and three are new and will become permanent. MAC Is Beauty will see the launch of two shades of Beauty Powder, which is described as "a silky-soft 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 Beauty Powder comes in regular black mirrored compacts, contains 10 grams of product, and retails for $31.
Alpha Girl is a medium warm pinked coral with a soft golden sheen. This is a re-promoted shade from 2008's Heatherette collection, and is limited edition. It has a soft, silky texture, and goes on smoothly and evenly. It has high pigmentation and semi-opaque to opaque buildable colour pay-off. It can be layered and blended out easily. It is more muted and more pink than Melba, lighter and more peach than Fleur Power, and more coral than Rosy Outlook.
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, lighter and more pink than Global Glow Mineralize Skinfinish, and similar though slightly less frosted than Pink Freeze Eyeshadow.
It seems like MAC is focusing quite a lot on Beauty Powders this season, what with two shades in this launch, another one from Bao Bao Wan, and yet another from Cinderella — all in the span of a single month! 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 generally 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, and the two from MAC Is Beauty are no exceptions. Alpha Girl works beautifully as a blush on fair to medium-dark skintones and more so as a highlighter on dark to deep dark skintones, whereas Pearl Blossom generally works better as a highlighter since it has such a strong frost finish (though those who are very fair can definitely use it as a blush, too). I've been wearing them together (Alpha Girl as blush and Pearl Blossom as a highlight) for a lovely fresh-faced Spring glow, and have been getting compliments every time! Long-time MAC fans may already have one or both shades in their stash, so check to see if you have them already, but if you don't, they are actually both worth taking a look at as they're widely flattering and very different from what MAC offers permanently (and actually very different to the two other Beauty Powders that were released last month!).
Alpha Girl is so pretty! But then, if these are more blushy, I guess I could just buy a similar blush for cheaper...because I'm not all fancy and can't use these things in multiple ways, lol! And I have never ever finished a blush in my life and don't really plan on it, hahaha.
ReplyDeleteLol, totally fair! I can't really see Alpha Girl being used in any other way than a blush, anyhow (although I know some older ladies like to put blush all over their faces to give their complexions more colour, lol). I think the main reason why MAC released Beauty Powders instead of blushes is because this collection focuses more on lips and eyes (almost mod-style), so they're keeping skin clean and softly illuminated. :)
DeleteAgree, Alpha Girl is so pretty! Unfortunately I just gave that blush money to Surratt. Can't wait until it gets here!
ReplyDeleteOoh, can't wait for your review! I was thinking about getting some Surratt blushes during the VIB sale...
DeleteI was afraid it'd be sold out at that point so I ordered one to try first. It's taking forever to get here though------- and wow, as I was typing this IT JUST GOT HERE. LOL I'll show you on Instagram but the compact is TINY.
DeleteWell, Liz, you are SMART because I just wanted to order three Surratt blushes and they are all sold out. I'm kicking myself because I was gonna order them at 4:00am (when I had remembered that the VIB Rouge sale started), and they were still available and in stock and then I FELL ASLEEP ON MY LAPTOP. So I was like, "Fuck it, I'll do it when I wake up." As of 1:00pm, they're all fucking gone. ANGRY PANTS.
Delete