MAC Pigments… they were just magical to me as someone who didn’t get to wear makeup growing up. When I first played with them in my first year of college, it was the start of a love affair that hasn’t wavered since! I think it was just all the color and texture, how reflective eyeshadow was, and they were so much fun to play around with.
We're here to help you make better beauty purchases that you'll enjoy and love! We recommend signing up to take advantage of personalized features like tracking products you own, viewing dupes that you already have, and more!
Here are some useful resources for you:
Curious how two shades compare to each other? Type in the shades below to get instant side-by-side swatches!
Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!
Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).
We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!
We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!
The Urban Decay Electric palette. I played with those gorgeous blues and that sparkly silver for weeks. And then Colourpop made me fall further in love with make up. It’s just been downward spiral of addiction ever since, lol.
Early 70s glam rock (Bowie, T Rex, Roxy Music, etc.), glitter nail polish, and Mary Quant makeup!
But I was fascinated by makeup way before I was old enough to wear it. When I was a little girl in the 60s I loved watching my mom put on her makeup when she was getting ready to go out to dinner, especially the way she’d put on her winged eyeliner in one graceful stroke. (I didn’t inherit that talent.) So glamorous!
Ditto, Seraphine! That 60’s Hollywood glam that my mom also sported, followed by the Glam Rock of the 70’s got me HOOKED!
I think you and I are the exact same age. I remember ninth and tenth grade as platform shoes, rainbow eyeshadow, and sparkly everything!
We probably are, Seraphine! Or, at least close to it. I’ll be 60 next March. Has me more freaked out than turning 30!
I know, right? I’m a few months ahead of you.
60 is delicious. You will dance right over it.
I hope you had Biba Blue Roses. I wore it with my paper dress and matching hat! I had the Mary Quant book, but lost it on my last move. My mum wore a bit of l/s, zero skills. I think I liked m/u early, bec of kiddie theatre.
I actually don’t remember having any Biba back then. I knew of the brand, but was it sold in the U.S.?
I just had a flashback to a brand that I used at some point in the 70s called Stagelight. They had pots of loose sparkly eyeshadow. I remember having a bunch of them.
It was sold at a boutique called Paraphernalia I think.
I never saw Mary Quant makeup in person. I think it wasn’t drugstore and my mom definitely did not buy luxury products. But I collected beauty books as long as I can remember and I had a book by Mary Quant. The looks in there were such cool mod looks.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love makeup and sparkle.
UD Naked 1 palette! I didn’t know eyeshadow could be so pigmented and beautiful, I had previously only used drugstore makeup and used to buy Revlon’s eyeshadow quads which were disappointing.
In my teens I wore mascara and lipstick/lipgloss, in my 20’s I added bare minerals powder foundation. When UD Naked came along it opened up a whole new world of makeup for me!
Queen Helene color changing lipstick from Woolworth’s was Magic to a 11 year old! Mimi
My first full time job (at age 18) was as a sales associate for Estée Lauder at a big department store. They thought I was older….so I lucked into the job. It was heaven……and I was hooked forever. The training in San Francisco was top notch. Gratis every six months was generous. Loved it! (Side note- now I stay far far away from makeup and skincare products that contain fragrance.)
Probably MAC in general. I’ve always been interested in makeup and skin care (from the time I was a pre-teen wanting to avoid spots and other adolescent skin woes) but when I really got into MAC – that was really falling down the rabbit hole for me – it was the variety of products, finishes, colours and textures. It seemed so different from the “old lady” lines that had always been around (Elizabeth Arden or Estee Lauder) or even more “innovative/modern” brands like Clinique. I was hooked with MAC and it’s been a happy obsession ever since.
Mac lipsticks and foundation.
I wouldn’t term it ‘falling in love’ with makeup. I appreciated the way colour – a taupe lipstick or darkened eyebrows – enhanced my appearance. For years, that was my look. Later, I came to like a more even skintone that came by wearing foundation, etc. I think I was falling in love with me by liking how certain products or services (tinted eyebrows) made me look and feel.
Yardley of London Slicker lipsticks! First featuring Jean Shrimpton as the model followed by Olivia Hussey. They were such beautiful drugstore displays in the late 1960s.
For me it was the Yardley eyeshadows in the tubes. Frosted pastels in blue, green, lavender, pink and white. Jean Shrimpton was my girl crush.
I had Wet n Wild eyeshadows in tubes, like lipsticks, in those pastel colors.
Watching my Mom transform with makeup made me fall in love with it, which I know is a story shared by a lot of us! I wasn’t allowed to use makeup until I was 15, and I absolutely couldn’t wait to dive into plums and browns and berries to make me look as vampy as possible. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to wear those shades until I was older but it didn’t stop me from daydreaming.
MAC became the brand that hooked me. I bought my first lip glass when I was 17 and there you have it. Makeup has been a regular part of my life for 16 years and has no sign of letting up!
Seeing what it could do to transform ones appearance was absolutely mesmerizing for me as a child back in the 60’s. My mom would get dolled up and she had that 50’s/60’s movie star glam thing going on, and so that became my ideal of “beauty”. She would allow me to play with her makeup, but I wasn’t permitted to wear it outside of the house until I was 13.
As a college student in the late 90’s sparkly Hard Candy eyeshadow was my gateway drug. I’m 41 now and still love all things glittery?♀️?
I was first hooked by the glamour of by my grandmother’s and mother’s vanity tables with all the pretty objects — silver mirrors and brushes, perfume bottles. Also by how they’d approach nights out and special occasions; make up was part of it, as were perfume, dressier or formal clothing, special jewelry, etc.
My earliest makeup memories are from the 70’s, with Cover Girl, Bonnie Bell, Mary Quant.
I dont remember but it started at a young age. I remember I was 13 and saving up all my money to buy Seventeen magazine and I would stare at the models faces and wish I looked like them. I remember one model in particular wore all white eyeshadow with white eyeliner and I bought a Covergirl white eyeshadow single to try and copy her.
My mom used to give me her Lancôme GWPs–it was literally the only makeup I had. I tried to buy a few things in college but I had limited funds and no real application skills. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s with a real paycheck that I bought bareMinerals with their easy to follow tutorials and beginner friendly color combos that I truly started collecting and hoarding makeup like I was stocking up for the zombie apocalypse! I still have a soft spot for Lancôme but don’t really own any in my stash. bareMinerals is still my HG for most of my collection though.
Watching my mom put it on. As a pre-school aged kid, I was entranced with the stacking eyeshadows and lipsticks, and the different tubes and bottles. I coveted this tube of ultra-bright fuchsia that she almost never wore, but I thought was the greatest color in the world. It came in a black tapestry floral-printed tube, but I can’t remember the brand.
Lol we’re the same age and I had a similar experience. My mom almost never used makeup, but she had some. And it was a tube of ultra bright fuschia lipstck that got me going. I used to beg her to do my face and use that lipstick, and I was just a little kid.
Note: I have long surpassed her. Now she constantly comes to me with questions about makeup and beauty, and she never takes my advice.
Colors in general. I love them everywhere. I used to draw and paint.
I was also involved in high school drama and learned stage makeup and crazy tricks. I once made my 5 yr old baby sister look like an old woman. Fun!!!!
My mother sold Avon when I was young. So I would play around with the lipstick samples. But when I was a young teen that was when I started getting into taking care of my skin as I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet. I am giving that credit, to how I look so young for my age right now, as I have kept that habit up. Then when I was a few years older I was mesmerized at how you could change your whole look with an eyeliner and mascara, a little blush here, and a touch of eyeshadow, and I was hooked.
Early 80s new wave and punk culture. Seeing makeup used to look interesting, instead of pretty, hooked me. I’m an ugly girl, always have been. Even as a very small child, I knew people found me unpleasant to look at. Adding pretty makeup to my face just made the ugly more obvious, even laughable, to others. Weird makeup gave me a space to relax and feel like a person.
I took dance throughout my school years, so I fell in love with makeup early because there were so many options and I could find the perfect colors to go with that year’s recital costume.
I just loved the colours and the way that makeup added an extra oomph to my face. I really love experimenting with different shades and I love the way it makes me feel.
Well, I’m certainly older than you, Christine 🙂
My Mom was a manager for Avonin Canada in the early 70s and that was my first intro to skin care.
By the time I wore makeup, in the early 80s, she took me to Merle Norman to get my makeup done; I was likely 11-12 years old.
They gave me a mini-palette with purples (which I NEVER wear anymore) and pinks and taught me how to apply them. I wore eyeshadow for a couple years (maybe) and never again for 30-ish years. Now, the quality, pigment, and colours are so much better. I can blend and balance the look I want.
*Avon* IN Canada
I have related this story a couple of times but I really got interested in makeup and skin care when I was in high school in the late 60’s and early 70’s. My best friend’s mother worked at a high end makeup counter (Borghese was high end back in the day) and she would give me samples of both skin care and makeup. It is funny as I look back on it but she didn’t allow her daughter to wear makeup but was fine with me wearing it! Anyway, I loved playing with makeup and would create looks, wash them off and start again. I got really busy in the 80’s and was working night shift at the hospital and barely had time to put powder and lipstick on before running out the door. Ditto for the 90’s. Then in the late 90’s the art of the large palette hit the market and I had time and my “artistic/creative” self blossomed and makeup filled that need in me. I don’t think it was a specific product but rather a need in myself to do something creative with color and I can’t paint or draw so makeup was it. My only regret is that I didn’t have the same passion throughout my years as once my passion was reignited my skin was already aged and saggy and just not how it was when I had first fallen in love with makeup. So I have had to accept the limitations associated with makeup application on a less than perfect canvas. It has taken a while to get there and some days I am no where near there and I think that everything looks terrible. Most days I still love the process and mostly the outcome, LOL.
Eyeshadow definitely made me fall in love with makeup. So did mascara. Eyeshadow is still my favorite makeup category. My first palette was Stila In the Light. I now use Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye Contour palette and Urban Decay Naked Ultimate Basics palette because I only wear matte shadows and neutrals (no color for me!). So, yes, definitely eyeshadow. Mascara has never worked for me. It makes my eyelashes fall out and irritates my eyes (even Clinique mascaras). Thank goodness, I’m blessed with long, dark, full lashes, so I just use dark brown eyeliner to complete my look. Have a wonderful rest of your day, Christine! X
The early years of The Body Shop and the very innovative Colorings collection and MAC
I’ve been in love with it as long as I can remember, but bright pink lipsticks were my first obsession. My mom had a shade called Butterfly Pink, I think it was Revlon. I got into that one whenever I could. It’s not like she was using it. Then I bought my own first lipstick from Avon when I was around 10 or 11. It was called Plum Pink, a very bright cool-toned pink. I used to wear that to 7th grade and didn’t care at all that other kids, including my sister, made fun of me. Throughout my tween years in the early 80s, I would haunt the local dime store with my cousin. We had everything Wet n Wild made, plus Maybelline, Cover Girl, Maxi…I don’t even remember what else.
Just about everything related to it. What not?! Colors, presentation, scent, glitter. I developed my strong passion mostly last year of high school I would wear mascara, eyeshadow, blush and mostly lipgloss. Now I don’t wear lipgloss as much mostly during Summer or only as a topper for lipsticks. I grew up seeing my mom and aunts getting dressed in the most fashionable styles back growing up in Cuba (when they still had makeup then it all disappeared) but gosh! Would these woman look so stylish in their Summer cropped pristine white pants, scarfs, glasees, heels. Like front cover models! Men too! So sexy wearing their super spotless white guayaberas in a nice tan. Those were the times! For night outings they would wear feathers on their hats the fashion was so beautiful. My mom is beautiful even without makeup she is well known for it among our family and friends. Unfortunately I resemble more my dad’s side (Lol!) is not exactly a bad thing I mean my aunts were nice looking woman not ugly in any form at all mostly with brown or darker eyes, but from my mom’s side they are really good loking with blue or green eyes. I mean most of them could be models. Hot looking! Lol! I have hazel eyes. Beautiful memories! Most have passed away and I never saw them again since 12 years old when we left the prison island. Never been back. Such a gorgeous island but fully destroyed. 🙁