MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad Review, Photos, Swatches
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad ($44.00 for 4 x 0.05 oz.) has four, permanent shades of eyeshadows and is housed in a specially-packaged quad with the collection’s design on the palette’s lid. All four shades were fairly good with decent to good color payoff, mostly blendable, and all lasted eight hours on me. he eyeshadow quad contains four permanent shades, so you could purchase these shades right now for $10 per pan, plus the empty quad for $8, which would run you $48, so you would save $4 if you went with the Maleficent quad, and it would come with special packaging. However, if you purchased everything separately, you would be able to remove the shades from the quad at your leisure, whereas the pre-made quad will come with the shades glued in. If, perhaps, you didn’t love all four shades, you could also substitute another shade from the permanent range that would suit your needs better.
Personally, I was terribly disappointed in this collection–particularly since we saw what MAC released for Venomous Villains–and its abundance of permanent products for such a small collection. If it had been a small, well-edited release with new and interesting shades, that would be have amazing. This just feels like a missed opportunity.
Goldmine is described as an “intense gold with shimmer.” It’s a medium-dark, yellow-orange gold with a frosted, metallic finish. It had good color payoff, though it wasn’t fully opaque, and the texture was fairly soft and smooth. It wore well for eight hours on me. Inglot #430 (P, $6.00) is darker. bareMinerals Remix (LE) is similar. OCC Triptych (P, $14.00) is more metallic. Chanel Pearl River #3 (LE) is similar. MAC Gaelic Gold (LE, $15.00) is darker. Disney by Sephora Triton (LE) is lighter. MAC Gilded Night #2 (LE, $21.00) is more glittery. See comparison swatches / view dupes.
Ground Brown is described as a “dirty deep brown [with a Matte finish].” It’s a medium-dark, subtly red-toned brown with a matte finish. The texture was really smooth, but it has a tendency to skip slightly. It applies and is easiest to blend if you use a fairly fluffy blush to apply it. This shade lasted for eight hours on me. Kat Von D Shadow Box (P) is more muted. Tarte Dream in Chocolate (LE) is darker. Too Faced Triple Fudge (P, $16.00) is similar. Laura Mercier Espresso (LE, $23.00) is darker. Chanel Charming #4 (LE) is similar. bareMinerals Boardroom (LE) is darker. MAC Embark (P, $15.00) is darker. Make Up For Ever #162 (P, $20.00) is similar. Inglot #326 (P, $6.00) is similar. See comparison swatches / view dupes.
Concrete is described as a “muted taupe brown [with a Satin finish].” It’s a medium-dark, muted brown with a gray-ish overcast but still has some warmer, brown undertones. The texture was soft, smooth, and it had good pigmentation. This shade wore well for eight hours on me. Kat Von D Shadow Box (P) is warmer. Tarina Tarantino Delightful #5 (P) is similar. Chanel Charming #4 (LE) is warmer. Too Faced Dark Chocolate (LE, $16.00) is darker. Urban Decay Secret Service (P, $18.00) is lighter, warmer. NARS Bali (P, $24.00) is more matte. MAC Cross-Cultural (LE, $15.00) is warmer. MAC Charcoal Brown (P, $15.00) is similar. Benefit Quick, Look Busy (P, $20.00) is similar. See comparison swatches / view dupes.
Carbon is described as an “intense black [with a Matte finish].” It’s a medium-dark black with mostly neutral undertones and a matte finish. It’s worth noting that Carbon is usually a subpar black eyeshadow, and it’s often terrible when it is placed in a pre-made quad, but this might be the most pigmented, softest, and best iteration of Carbon I’ve come across. It’s not without its flaws, compared to other black eyeshadows on the market, but it is significantly improved from past releases. See comparison swatches / view dupes.
Maleficent
$33.00.
Goldmine
PPermanent. $17.00.
Ground Brown
PPermanent. $17.00.
Concrete
PPermanent. $17.00.
Carbon
LELimited Edition. $17.00.
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
MAC Goldmine Eyeshadow
MAC Goldmine Eyeshadow
MAC Ground Brown Eyeshadow
MAC Ground Brown Eyeshadow
MAC Concrete Eyeshadow
MAC Concrete Eyeshadow
MAC Carbon Eyeshadow
MAC Carbon Eyeshadow
MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad
Nothing about this says Maleficent to me. Shame.
It is a bummer!
Totally agree!
I don’t own any of those shades, but since they are permanent I don’t see the urgency of getting them!
I also leans a bit too dark for everyday wear.
Definitely no urgency, and unless you love and want all four, it’s more practical just to buy the ones you love separately.
Thank you for the review. How disappointing. There was no creativity in the packaging and the colors seemed to have just been thrown into a palette.
No problem, Indira!
After seeing the summer collection packaging, this just looks so lame. I do not see anything in this collection to tempt me. Meh
I agree – it looks even less tempting when you have a collection with more inspired packaging, more interesting colors, etc. coming out a week later.
Meh, I think I’ll be giving this collection a pass to be honest.
It’s underwhelming for sure!
Booooo!!!! But it does look striking on your eye, Christine! Nice job!
Thank you!
These are pretty! Good thing they’re permanent already! 🙂
Yay!
and again…….CARBON!!! Though it’s nice to read that this is a better formula than is usually in LE quads, I still find even the permanent iteration of Carbon to be disappointing. The only shadow in this quad that I’d want is Concrete and, fortunately, I’ve already got that one. And since I have 3 of the listed dupes for Ground Brown (a shade that is too red for me to lust over), I don’t even need to be curious about that one. This is quite a dark quad to be practical for a lot of people, I think (unless you’re an evil Queen!)
I’m not keen on Goldmine being the “light” color in it – it’s very warm-toned in a more neutral-to-warm toned quad! It’s also super shimmery, so it doesn’t play as well with the matte finishes as a satin or pearly sheen might have!
So boring! This entire collection was a bust! I would have loved to see more greens and purples. Or any fun colors really. Everything is neutral and bland. Even the packaging. MAC could have done so much more with this
Yep, they had an opportunity to do something interesting but not so.
GASP! A MAC quad that isn’t TERRIBLE.
Haha!
Based on the trailers, I feel like the colors in the quad match the theme of the movie. I do like the shades together and I like your eye look with them. Venomous Villians was more whimsical to me in a way where this collections is more live action and realistic. I would have loved to see non permanent colors make their way to this collection to make it more exclusive.
If it was a larger collection, and say they had two or three quads, I think it would have been just fine, you know? But just one with all permanent looks uninspired 🙁
So this palette is basically all permanent eye shadows! hmmm!
Yep!
yeah, but if you buy the quad, you get the crappy looking packaging! Isn’t that nice? (sarcastic voice OFF)
The look you came up with for this is quite pretty, but the colors and the collection as a whole seem like so little effort was put into it. That, and the trailers keep throwing me with the whole wings thing.
They basically were reading Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms and decided “Let’s make her an Avariel!”
(http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Avariel)
Thank you!
I never really go for the premade quads to begin with, but this is very disappointing. I really wish they weren’t all permanent.
Same here!
Good GRIEF is that ever boring. You’re right – a completely missed opportunity. Blah.
It would have been nice to maybe have two quads… one more interesting, one more basic.
It is such a shame that the shadows are glued into the palette, because even if you thought these shades were boring, you could make you own version of a “maleficent” palette and that would be an awesome creative aspect. But because they’re glued in and all permanent… there’s not much excitement in this whole collection in my opinion.
If they weren’t glued, it would at least save you money!
These palettes are fairly simple to depot, and glue I what you want. All you need is a flat iron. If you like the shades otherwise, it may be worth the effort/cost.
Oh Christine, I couldn’t agree with you more – this collection is SUCH a disappointment…
So sad!
This entire collection seems really rushed, like they forgot they needed to put together a Maleficent collection and threw it together at the eleventh hour to get it out to market in time. It really is a bummer and doesn’t do the character justice. I mean, think of all the amazing things they could have done for an evil queen collection! Wasted opportunity.
Ouch! LOL!
Everything about the colours in this quad looks promising! One of the better ones from MAC I’d say!
Definitely!
Ya know, I’ve often wondered why I’ve had this totally irrational dislike of MAC products for years now… Guess what, the fog has lifted and its stuff like this which has clarified things for me. Bleh!
Aww!
Ditto. Way underwhelmed by this collection. Was looking for more purples and fuchsia from Maleficient!!! They’ve wasted an opportunity there…
It could have been a lot more creative!
Goldmine is a nice gold colour, and I like the look you did with these shadows! The palette is….kind of not as fun as I might have expected for Maleficent, though…
I’ve always loved Goldmine!
Karen, from Makeup and Beauty Blog, does a look on her blog with this palette that definitely ls “Maleficent”, if the definition of the word is dark and sutlry, with a bit of evil mystery thrown in. Its just in how you use the dark colors. For a quad, I’d like to see a better flow from light to dark. This has a light shade and then goes right to dark, that is what makes it ‘Maleficent” in my mind. I guess “goth” might be another interpretation of the word, or the look! Ground Brown looks like it would be my favorite, as it is a warm, red brown, why did you not swatch it? Concrete looks warmer and taupier in the pan than in the swatch, so I guess I really need to swatch these for myself, but I probably have dupes to most of these colors. You did do a beautiful look with them, how did you use the dark shades in your interpretation? You managed to take the dark shades and make a very innocent looking eye. Its all in how you use the colors and how deep you make the eyeliner. I can’t wait to get the Sculpt in the individual packaging, and the Beauty Powder looks promising for my very fair skin as well. I could probably use a good red, brown in my collection, but the rest of the eyeshadow shades probably already live in my bathroom!
Hi Ellen!
I did swatch Ground Brown! It’s the photo right below the photo of the eyeshadow pan! 🙂 I used all of the shades in the palette – Goldmine on the inner lid, Ground Brown on the middle of the lid, Concrete on the outer lid, Carbon in the crease!
The palette is pretty nice but yes nothing new to tempt us.. 😉
Exactly!
Carbon again… It’s as exciting as the rest of the collection.
I think I’m nearly a dozen Carbons, lol!
I agree Christine, totally a missed opportunity with this collection, as you said, esp. after the awesomeness of Venemous Villains.
No savings on the quad either, no thank you. For $52 CDN I can buy other brands’ palettes that are larger and have a lot more interesting options.
It just seems like a lot more thought went into Venomous Villains, not just the colors, but the collection’s story/theme.
Way too warm for me
Aww!
I´d like to see some purple and grey eyeshadows in this collection..
Even the packaging is disappointing, I was hoping some velvet dark purple cases, like the Temperature Rising ones, with the black horn symbol, something impactful..
Nothing about this ugly packaging says Maleficent to me. So sad. Waste of oportunity to make something epic like Venomous Villains.
That packaging would have been interesting!
all rather underwhelming. I was so looking forward to this one, but its all just “meh”. Was expecting something interesting as befits an evil story tale queen. I mean, look at those horns! They scream dark fantasy, deep misty purples and greens. A golden opportunity missed, methinks.
I agree, Renae! Not a lot of mystery here.