MAC Black, Silver, Gray Eyeshadow Swatches
MAC Black Tied Eyeshadow
MAC Black, Silver, Gray Eyeshadow Swatches
- Black Tied is a matte black base with silver sparkles on top. The color payoff is decent but the texture is on the drier, almost chalky side. It has a velvet finish. It is similar to NARS Night Breed.
- Carbon is a matte black with a matte finish. The payoff is decent but performs better applied than merely swatched. It has a drier texture. It isn’t the richest/deepest black on the market. It’s similar to Inglot #391.
- Nehru is a grayish black with a matte finish. It is more pigmented than MAC Double Feature 7.
- Print is a dark gray with a subtle sheen. It has a satin finish. The color is a little browner than MAC Double Feature 7. Decent to good color payoff and not dry.
- Scene is a smoky gray with a hint of blue and a satiny sheen. It has satin finish. The color payoff is decent but not great, and the texture is drier overall. Inglot #339 is a touch lighter but similar.
- Copperplate is a grayish brown with a Matte2 finish.
- Electra is a light-medium silver with an almost metallic sheen. It has a frost finish officially. The color payoff is decent, and it applies smoothly. It’s warmer-toned than Lancome Style Section.
- Filament is a chunky, silvery white with large sparkles. It has a lustre finish. It’s fall out city along with really sheer, uneven color payoff.
- Forgery is a bright white with a hint of silver along with chunky sparkles. It has a lustre finish. It suffers from fall out issues as well as it doesn’t apply smoothly.
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I have a matte black eyeshadow from a “french/european” brand and they stopped it to make like blueish black and stuff, so no more true black matte. I thought that then I’d buy MAC carbon but your review makes me unsure about it…
Any recommendation for a true matte black I could get? Thanks a lot for all this hard work !
Love from France
Sugarpill Bulletproof+ is the darkest black, but you could also try MUFE #4 if that is more readily available!
thanks i’ll look for that, cause indeed the problem i have is that there are some brands that i can’t get/ doesn’t ship to france.
Thanks for the advice !
Hinahon, if you can’t get the Sugarpill e/s, you could try to get a palette from Sleek. They have an amazingly pigmented matte black in almost every palette and they’re quite a bargain. (Actually, almost all of their eyeshadows are quite pigmented.) As it is a British brand, you should definitely be able to get it in France.
Judging from the individual reviews and swatches, is it safe to say that out of this batch, Nehru, Print, and Copperplate would be the better ones?
Yes!
I think that anyone who currently swears by Carbon should just swap to Sugarpill’s Bulletproof. Shit is bulletproof for sure, blackest of blacks.
It does depend on what you are going for, though – if you want a really deep, dark black, then yes, but if you want a softer black, then no 🙂
really christine? i love my mac eyeshadows so much! I have alot of other high end eyeshadow(urban decay, toofaced, nars) but i just always have reach back to my mac ones. alot of the urban decay palettes(naked palette and their anniversary palette)have way too much fall out than mac ones.
Please keep in mind this grade is for this set of eyeshadows, not ALL MAC eyeshadows.
Carbon does kind of suck :/ I’ve been looking at the MUFE one, but I don’t know if I can justify spending that much on a single shadow, even though I *do* use black shadow basically everyday…hmm…
yeah i own carbon-and i dont actually like it.,.i find it not pigmented enough..
I use NYX’s black over Carbon. I think I ended up giving my mom my Carbon. The NYX black is pretty cheap, and if you use it wet, the black is even more intense. For the price and quality, I highly recommend it!
In my gray-blue palette I have Carbon, Nehru, Soot, Vex, Electra, Silver Ring, Knight Divine (you need both of them) and LE Smoke &Diamonds and Bough Grey. Scene is on my wishlist but I have no more free holes in my palette
Any drugstore dupes you know of for electra? Or a brighter more metallic silver that is drugstore or highend. Thanks!
highly recommend copperplate for filling in brows that don’t have any warm undertones.
you forgot typographic! I love that one, it’s not super super black but the texture is really really nice. Unless it’s been discontinued??
If it’s not posted, then I don’t own it – as I wrote in the beginning of the post!
oh yeah! duh!!
Typographic is a pretty good black – I bought it instead of carbon because of the mixed reviews on carbon.
I don’t have it, sorry again!
thanks for these swatch posts christine! it’s great to be able to compare the various shades this way, and i’m sure they are an invaluable resource for many of us.
i do however find it strange to give these shadows a grade en masse….they don’t seem to have much commonality, aside from being ‘black, silver, grey’…some shades may not be terrific (depending on what you’re looking for), but others are awesome! i feel it’d would be different if you were grading them by finish or even more specific shade range (e.g. black), but even then… (just my opinion, of course)
I prefer not to group products, but at the same time, I’m not going to post 300 different posts on MAC eyeshadows 🙂 There is plenty of variance within finish as well, so even grouping by finish would still bring up or lower grades depending on the finish. I explained the shortcomings of each shade individually for that reason. It’s grouped by color to make it easier on readers to look at like colors together. Though overall, these are disappointing shades across the board. None of these are A+ by any means. Most of these are lacking in pigmentation (whether by a little or a lot) and have drier textures, so there is more in common I would say 🙂
Thanks for not posting 300 MAC shades individually and grouping them. It is easier to read and more interesting. One by one gets really droning….if that is a word.
Nice! My fave, Typographic, is missing :<
I’m always really surprised when you don’t mention Urban Decay’s Oil Slick as a dupe for those blacks-with-silver-sparkles. It’s been ignored a couple of times now — any particular reason? (Something about it that makes it NOT a dupe?)
I can’t remember every single product I have ever reviewed and therefore cannot always mention every single possible dupe there might be since my memory is a crapshoot – I’m so sorry! 🙁
Hey, no worries. I was just wondering if it was intentional!
filament and forgery are my fave highlighters-im surprised i didnt see them with that post rather than this!!
How do you deal with all of the fall out?
Filament is beautiful! ♥
I’m surprised I didn’t see typographic here since it was in your old 2009 “gray, silver and blacks swatches” post .. But thanks for doing the review since I’ve been on the lookout for eyeshadow that would be more of a true black and I was almost about to buy carbon. It sucks that I can’t get MUFE or sugarpill where I live though, do you have any alternatives? 🙂 Thanks
Previous swatch posts were done in-store – I did not own those. 🙁
What about Inglot? http://www.temptalia.com/inglot-matte-eyeshadows-in-337-390-350-348-376-349-339-387-324-391-318-373-neutrals-grays-blacks#image10
Black eyeshadows – http://www.temptalia.com/swatch-gallery?color=Black&action=Sort&type=219
Silver Ring is my favorite gray/silver. 🙂
Did you layer on carbon in the swatch? I don’t remember being able to make it look that opaque. (or maybe it’s the lighting in the picture?)
Nope!
you didn’t include typographic which is phenomenal
typographic has been discontinued.
Christine, this is kinda random, but I was just curious to know out of all the MAC collections, what are your favorites? (e.g. Peacocky, Tartan Tale, Hello Kitty, ect.)
Moonbathe, Peacocky
Wow, with those last two you can see how bad the fallout is even in the swatch. I’d hate to think how they come out on the eye, where gravity’s working against them. D: Thank you for the honest review!
Mac carbon & black tied <3
Carbon and copperplate are a must, I highly recommend these to everybody! Thanks Christine for enlightening us all on these great colors!