MAC Couture 2006 Collection Review

Lipsticks: Most of you have heard many rave reviews of Red No. 5, and I’m not going to be an exception to it. I’m not entirely sure how I like the color on me, but it is a gorgeous holiday reddish lipstick that I can’t think of a permanent dupe right off the top of my head. Maybe New York Apple, but not quite so dark. Those of you who haven’t seen it in person, it is not a true red at all, so don’t go in with that expectation! House of Style looks like this gorgeous bright pink in the tube, but on my lips, it was too pale of a pink for my NC30 skin to pull off. Couture is definitely as lovely in the tube as it is on the lips, but when it comes to be worth picking up… I passed. They had Pink Maribu lipstick still on their permanent display rack, and I swatched it right next to Couture, and they were much too alike to merit spending extra money just for packaging. Influential went the same way, only it is quite similar to the other sheer, shimmery corals like CB96 and Skew. I would say that all of the lipsticks have an incredible amount of color payoff for how light and sheer they feel on your lips. Deliciously creamy and rich.

Lipglasses: Prestigious is this beautiful deepened rose color–it sort of reminds me of Rose pigment as it looks in the jar, only in a lipglass form. It has color payoff, so you will not be adding a barely-there-sheer lipglass that hardly even tints your lips. I could not think of a similar permanent color in the line, so that is also a positive! Magnificent looked like an interesting bubble-gum pink lipglass, but not overwhelmingly pink that it would look like porn-star pink, either. I was too tired to try it on, but it looked lovely on my hand! Collection and Savoir Faire were very similar to each other, as they were both fairly neutral/nude lipglasses. They did not inspire me because they just resembled the dozens of other neutral lipglasses they have released over the past year. Thick, luscious, and definitely not too sticky.

Richmetal Highlighters: Oh, how I wanted to fall in love with these so badly! Unfortunately, richmetal highlighters and my NC30 skin were simply not meant to be. When you touched your finger to the highlighter, it was luxuriously soft, velvety, and it felt wet… and yet completely dry. I could not believe how smooth these compacts were, but they provide little pigmentation and mostly shimmer. I tested both Glit Edge and Rare and Refined on my cheeks, but neither did much. I thought I would get a glowing, bronze glow with Glit Edge, but negative. I decided to try Rare and Refined to see if a drastically different color than my skin would give me more of what I had been looking for, but it also failed to do that. Arc Silver is a color I just could not see myself wearing, but it was the only highlighter with the most color payoff. La Mode has a bit of green hue in it, so the makeup artist that was helping me did not recommend it on cheeks, only on eyes. I let her try it on my eyelids, but it did not do a thing but add shimmer to them. Lovely packaging and texture, but I cannot see myself getting much use, if any, out of these.

Sheer Mystery Powders: These were so soft, but I did not feel like they added anything to my face when I had it applied. You can use these to set your foundation and face makeup, as an alternative to MAC’s other powder compacts, and the price is not outrageous because I believe there is a refill included, so it is like you are buying two at once. The weight of the compact will make you think twice, because it is quite heavy, and it is not something you will want to just throw in your purse. The makeup artist and I joked it could be used as a weapon.

182 Buffer Brush: I am not a MAC brush girl. In fact, I have disliked the majority of the MAC brushes I have bought (and subsequently returned most of them). The only MAC brush I have really found to be worth the price is the 187, which I use almost daily. This brush is ridiculously elegant-looking in the couture packaging, and the brush itself is so silky and soft that it is pure divinity against your face. To get the brush with the limited edition packaging, it is an additional ten dollars, but to be honest, that does not seem outrageous when the brush is normally priced at $45.

Couture Black Box: Gorgeous on its own, but it is very small in size, and the Couture packaging gathers fingerprints better than anything, because it is made out of mirror-like (if not mirror itself) material. For the price tag, I would not even give it a second look, but for those who have the ability to purchase it, it is definitely something beautiful to add to a collection.

So what did I get? I ended up picking up Red No. 5 lipstick, Prestigious lipglass, and the 182 buffer brush from the Couture launch. I also bought Electrolady and Pinkcraft liquidlasts from Out Loud, because they were stunning.