MAC Nail Trend F/W ’09 Collection: Review

OVERALL, the shades are creamy and cool-toned, going on mostly opaque with two medium-thick coats of lacquer, and they have a soft glossy sheen.  These are not matte polishes (as I know some have asked me), but they’re definitely colors perfect for the fall and winter season.  I liked For Fun and Cool Reserve the most, though Rich, Dark, Delicious is lovely and I’ll find myself wearing at least once in the next few months.  Dry Martini, while different, just didn’t suit my skin tone, and Beyond Jealous was a bit too dark for my personal taste.  Dance All Night is classic, so it just depends on your taste/collection on whether it’s worthwhile to pick up.

Nail Lacquer

• For Fun is a creamy magenta-purple with a subtle red tone. It is nearly opaque in two medium-thick coats, though a third coat would really bring it home.
• Dry Martini is a creamy deep olive-green with a bit more olive than green in it. I didn’t detect any shimmer, and I found this one to be the hardest to apply. It was a bit streaky, and I felt like thicker coats made it easier to apply overall. I’m not feeling the color myself, but it’s one of those shades you don’t see too often.
• Cool Reserve is a creamy, cool-toned grayed purple. It’s a soft grayish lilac almost. Like For Fun, two medium-thick coats made it just nearly opaque, and a third coat would make it totally solid. This one was one of my favorites — even on my warm skin tone, I liked it on myself.
• Beyond Jealous is a creamy, green-black. It goes totally opaque with two medium-thick coats, and it has a glossy finish that’s more apparent in this shade than the other five. It is really a very dark, very deep green that runs very close to black in natural light.
• Rich, Dark, Delicious is a deep dark chocolate black-brown that runs a little neutral-cool and has nearly imperceptible flecks of shimmer. I can only see the shimmer if I look really hard in sunlight, otherwise it appears mostly as a creme. Two coats made it opaque with no application issues.
• Dance All Night is a rich, blood red that goes on nearly opaque with two coats. I do recommend using three thinner coats with this particular shade, because I found medium to thick coats to be a bit overwhelming. This one is all creme–no shimmer whatsoever–and is quite fitting it is so.

• Product: 8/10
• Value: 8/10
• Ease of Use: 7/10
• Packaging: 7/10

Recommendation: Nail polish fanatics hoping for an improved MAC formula might find in the latest lacquers created by nail guru Jin Soon Choi!

Availability: MAC Cosmetics (August 27th)

What did you think of MAC’s latest polishes?  Did you pick up any?