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Jun 24, 2011

MAC Semi-Precious Swatches, Photos, and Review

June 24, 2011 By Carleenp Leave a Comment

MAC Semi-Precious Swatches: Eye Shadow, Mineralize Blush, and Mineralize Skinfinish

The MAC Semi-Precious collection offers twelve very well pigmented mineralize eye shadows, three blushes, and four Mineralize Skinfinish luminizers/blushes/bronzers. In the past when MAC has done mineralized eye shadow I found that some of the shades ended up a bit muddy at times, but this collection generally didn’t have that problem among the eight shades that I swatched, with the exception of one dark green shade, Dark Indulgence (which I think still looks OK, but the green doesn’t show at all) .

MAC Semi-Precious Eye Shadow Swatches

Below are Semi-Precious Eye Shadow swatches of eight of the twelve shades. From left to right with notes in parenthesis: Unsurpasssable (this is more luminous than the picture shows and is a gorgeous light turquoise/teal), Quartz Fusion (lots of glitter in this one that doesn’t show as well in photos), Dark Indulgence, Blue Sheen (particularly well pigmented), Rare Find (my personal favorite), Faux Gold (more luminous than the photo really depicts), Jade’s fortune (another really pretty and interesting sea green shade), and Mineral Mode (this was more pinkish than I thought it would be).

MAC Semi-Precious Blush Swatches and Mineralize SkinFinish Swatches

Neither of the blush shades that I tried thrilled me, but that is only because they wouldn’t personally work well for me, they actually are rather pretty shades. I also noted that they have pretty decent pigment to them. I also tried three of the skinfinish shades. Here are swatches of the blushes and skinfinish. From left to right: Pearl SkinFinish (probably the best shade for my rather pale skin), Rose Quartz SkinFinish (has a very pretty pink to it), Goldstone SkinFinish, Pressed Amber blush, and Warmth of Coral Blush

The collection also includes brushes, mascara, face and body lotion, mineralize charged water, mineralize satin finish foundation, and new lip shades. I swatched the lipsticks and cremsheen lipglasses over on Girl Gloss. You can see them here: MAC Semi-Precious Lip Swatches.

This collection is available July 7, though August 21, 2011. Sometimes the collections show up for sale a few days early.

Disclosure: This review is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see our disclosure page.

Disclosures: Beauty and Fashion Tech at times reviews products provided by a representative of the company. When we do so, we specifically state so. We also use affiliate links. For more, please see the disclosure page

Filed Under: Blush, Collections and Looks, Eyeshadow, Face Products, Makeup, Mineral Makeup, Palettes and Collections, Powder Tagged With: M.A.C., Swatches

May 10, 2011

MAC Surf Baby Swatches

May 10, 2011 By Carleenp Leave a Comment

The Mac Surf Baby collection has a summer bronze theme that will work well if you are a bronzer fan. I’m not really loving the eye shadows in this collection except for the teal blue, but it does have two really nice sets of metallic pigments. I also love the lipsticks and balms (which really are tube glosses with spf) in the collection. I have swatches of those up on Girl Gloss here: MAC Surf Baby Lip Swatches.

Below are MAC surf baby swatches. First up are the powder point eye pencil in Gilded White, which is a rather nice soft pencil, and eye shadows in Surf USA, Saffron, and Sun Blonde. I question whether Saffron and sun Blonde would look very good on anyone other than those with rather warm skin tones to begin with. I do love the teal though! It seems like MAC puts out a new teal every summer that just vary from each other slightly. The pigment is quite good on all of the shades.

Next up are swatches of the surf baby crushed metallic pigments. These come in two different four pigment sets. I really like both of them. The Summer Stash set includes shades of Light White Pearl, Light Pink Champagne, Brown Bronze with gold pearl, and Light Violet with silver pearl.

The pigment set of Surf the Ocean contains shades of Frosty Platinum, Light Yellow Green (I don’t personally see the yellow in this, which is fine by me), Dirty Graphite with silver pearl, and Gold Bronze. The light green is gorgeous and I don’t think the swatch really does it justice.

Also in the MAC Surf Baby collection are three bronzer sticks. These are not sheer by any means! Nor are any of them very light. Even the lightest shade is not going to work for me. They could be rather neat for contouring on darker skin though. Below are swatches of the MAC skinsheen bronzer sticks in the shades Tan-Tint (the lightest shade in the collection) and Billionaire Bronze.

Finally, here is a swatch of the Surf Baby Cheek Powder, which is an interesting shade that I think you need the right skin tone for. It is pretty, but I think it looks a bit garish on my cool toned skin. Also included is a swatch of Gold Go Lightly Bronzing Powder.

MAC lists the surf baby collection as available beginning May 26, 2011. Their collections often pop up a bit early though.

Disclosure: This post is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more information, please see the disclosure page.

Filed Under: Blush, Bronzers, Collections and Looks, Eyeshadow, Face Products, Makeup, Palettes and Collections, Powder Tagged With: Collections, M.A.C., Swatches

Apr 22, 2011

MAC Fashion Flower Swatches

April 22, 2011 By Carleenp 1 Comment

The MAC Fashion Flower Collection contains a number of brightly colored shadows inspired by spring floral blossoms. For lip product swatches, head on over to my post on Girl Gloss: MAC Fashion Flower Lipstick Swatches.

In the eye shadows, I particularly like the lighter shades in the fashion flower collection, which includes a beautiful matte light aqua blue and a luminous lime green that really shines. Matte coral pink and gray shades are also interesting, as is a frosty white/yellow shade, that appears mostly white. The disappointment for me was a hunter green shade that looks luminous and beautiful in the pot, but appears black and not so luminous on the skin.

Below are Fashion Flower eye shadow swatches. Since the sun hasn’t come out here in a week, these are taken in indoor light with a flash. But I think that the swatch is very true to color. From left to right: Fresh Daisy, Aqua , Lucky Green, Free to Be, Groundcover, and Bows & Curtseys.

Also included in the collection are two beauty powders. Both are very light and sheer. I was packing on the color when I did the powder swatches, but it still is rather hard to see. Below are the swatches of the beauty powders form the MAC Fashion Flower collection. From left to right: Alpha girl and Light Sunshine.

The M.A.C. Fashion Flower Collection is listed as being on counter on May 5, 2011. Often new MAC Cosmetics collections show up online slightly before their listed dates.

Disclosure: This post is based on products provided to me by a representative of the company. for more, please see the disclosure page.