Row 1: Alessandra, Caro Daur, Fleur de Force, The Real Fouz, Gabriel Zamora;
Row 2: LarLarLee, Marie, Nikkia Joy, Samantha Ravndahl, Vic Ceridono
April 20th for LarLarLee and Gabriel Zamora lipsticks (North America). April 19th 2017 for Fleur de Force (UK), Alessandra (UK) lipsticks. April 2017 for Samantha Ravndahl (Canada) lipsticks. May 2017 for Marie (France). June 2017 for Caro Daur (Germany), The Real Fouz (Middle East). July 2017 for Vic Ceridono (Brazil), Nikkia Joy (Australia).
Lipstick, $17.00 U.S. / $21.00 CAD (Limited Edition, Regional Launch)
Lipsticks will only be sold in the region they are released in, e.g. U.S. in U.S., UK in UK. I will not have samples (and therefore no reviews, photos, or swatches) of shades outside of the U.S.
#MACxAlessandra Neutral pink (Matte) (UK)
#MACxCaroDaur Muted pinky-beige brown (Matte) (Germany)
#MACxFleurdeForce Cool beige (Cremesheen) (UK)
#MACxTheRealFouz Dirty rose (Matte) (Middle East)
#MACxGabrielZamora Malty warm brown (Satin) (North America)
#MACxLarLarLee Muted beige (Matte) (North America)
A post shared by Fleur De Force (@fleurdeforce) on
Explore Temptalia
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!
Curious how two shades compare to each other? Type in the shades below to get instant side-by-side swatches!
57 Comments
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!
Comments on this post are closed.
Laurel
Geez, except for the last one they are basically all the same. How boring.
My full name is Alessandra (everyone calls me Ally for short) you can BET I am getting that lipstick with my name on it!
Lucky me it’s in a shade I wear!
Yay more boring neutrals (bc red is also considered a neutral). Obviously they are pretty colors and I’ll probably buy at least one, because that’s what I do, but how many neutral nudes, pinks, and beiges does a person need?
Totally brilliant promotion!! Good job MAC. It’s too bad the ones I like best won’t be available here, but I’m still excited to see how this collection looks when worn.
Chantel
Gorgeous lipsticks.
lipsticklust
I’m genuinely pissed Mac is making them worldwide! I love Sam so I’d like her shade but I live in the US.
Kirsten
Apparently the only ones I’m interested in won’t be sold in my region. 🙁
Yeah I agree with you Kelvene and Isa . Where’s any woman of color? No Africa? I’m not going to purchase the products in this collection, because it is too non representative , MAC should definitely include more people of color, have shades for darker skin tones and have better availbilty .
Nicole
I noticed that too. Ah well. won’t be getting my coins This collection.
Where is the one for Asia? We’re a pretty big market, MAC! I’m sure you already knew since you started testing on animals just to be able to sell to the Chinese, so why no representation here?
I hate the idea of regional exclusives for a global brand. Especially since if I understand right, these people are all youtubers? Youtube is a global platform and they will likely have viewers who want to “support” them by buying their stuff all across the globe. Actually, that will be true no matter their social media platform. So why make this release regional exclusive? To increase sales of scalpers on ebay?
MAC certainly does do promo throughout Asia, but the nature of the campaigns are quite different and this one would really not appeal to markets in say, China or Japan, based on what I know of their beauty promo culture. I feel like this campaign targets one specific demographic in the beauty blogosphere — even though it’s global, the target audience here looks like regions that use instagram heavily. Chinese use different social media platforms (secretly, because most are blocked by the government!) and beauty blogging is quite different depending on the different country. Or in Japan, for comparison, there is an uptick in youtube use because of changes to phone plans and the way people stream videos now while on the train, and instagram is not that popular (taking pictures of your face and publicly self-aggrandizing is pretty frowned upon). Ultimately, the nature of a global marketing campaign is going to be pretty localized when there are really different beauty standards and concerns and a different type of media consumption in Asia. I think if MAC truly tried to do a worldwide social media one-size-fits all campaign it would have been less effective. I agree with the commenters that it is very light-skin heavy here, but a lot of MAC campaigns target predominantly darker skin demographics too — they are not egregiously light skin-oriented like Guerlain or some of the high fashion/high beauty brands.
I am actually in Asia, and I would say that we do use those social media channels quite extensively. I know facebook and other sites are blocked by the Chinese government, but Asia is more than just China. Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Philipines, India, etc are all part of Asia too, and they all have their own social media stars. Pony, anyone? It would not have been difficult to find someone to collab with, even if it’s just to have a “token” Asian.
I understand that taking and posting pictures of oneself is perceived to be ego-stroking and immodest by many Japanese, but I personally believe that is changing, especially in the demographic most targeted by cosmetic companies. I’m not Japanese, so I can’t speak from first hand experience nor do I want say that I know much about their society, so I’ll just cite a survey conducted by JTB Tourism Research and Consulting Co. that in 2016, Instagram was used by one out of five respondents, but usage grew 5.4 percentage points year over year and that the reach of Instagram rises when it comes to females.
From what I’ve seen in my own country, and when I’ve travelled to other countries in Asia, MAC seems to have pretty much the same promos as other places. The shops right now are featuring the work it out collection, with exactly the same promotional images and the advertisements in the magazines are the same images too. They didn’t even really promote the Year of the Rooster stuff any differently or make a bigger deal out of it, and I’m living in a country where 75% of the population is ethnically Chinese and do celebrate Chinese New Year.
Also, this is MAC. Their campaigns are not really such a big deal these days, with a huge media blitz that would go on for months. It will launch, it will be hyped up for about 2 weeks, and then they will be on to the next limited edition promotion. I doubt there is that there is really that much thought given to each promotional campaign these days, this included. So yeah, I’m not that inclined to think that they deliberated on whether including the Asia-Pacific region would dampen their campaign or not. Maybe this one has even less resources given to it than others like Mariah Carey; it doesn’t really seem like a big launch. The packaging of the lipstick bullets seem to be standard MAC. My perception is that this is essentially assembling a group of Gurus, having them “create” a colour and then depending on those gurus to do most of the marketing for them.
I agree that MAC is one of the most inclusive brands overall, which is also partly why this campaign struck me as odd. I’m not actually offended as such, it just seems odd that they wouldn’t want to generate sales from this market.
This is all really interesting, I’m glad I commented — thank you for the insight! I only commented as to China and Japan, because I have a bit more familiarity with those two countries, which together comprise a GDP almost equivalent to the United States. Japan and Korea are also important trend setters in fashion in Asia (and increasingly China). So American globally-oriented businesses typically really take into account how things are going to land in China, and also Japan. There are definitely other significant Asian markets and markets that should be taken into account, I certainly don’t want to talk anymore than I already have been on guesses and projections from my own cultural standpoint, haha.
Though the marketing advertisements may be roughly the same campaign in different countries, I’m sure they have a local team tailor the release to that location. That’s at least standard practice in the industry – to make sure there are not some cultural insensitivities. At least in Japan, the release parties related to MAC are extremely different from the launch releases they do in Santa Monica, California for the same campaigns. It’s quite possible that people are posting more “immodest” type things in Japan, but, anecdotally, even though I’ve seen an increase in Japanese people using instagram, for the most part it is posts that are not of oneself (i.e. pictures of food, scenery, etc.). It would make sense that eventually mainstream celebrity instagram users have a trickle-down effect and influence how average people use the app, but I’m not entirely convinced that it is happening. Anyway, that’s a bit off topic.
To go back to your original post, I think brands probably ideally would love to sell everything everywhere, but that would probably greatly increase the cost of the campaign, and a lot of these beauty gurus probably only have contractual management and representation for certain countries. In any case, yeah, it is a smaller MAC release and campaign.
Thanks for responding, this is an interesting conversation about the role of social media and marketing from different cultural perspectives . 🙂
Oh, China and Japan are the most desirable markets in the region, there is no doubt or debate about that. I just disagreed with the notion that Asia as a whole didn’t get any representation because Asians as a whole don’t use Instagram. Or that this kind of campaign is inherently unappealing to Asians.
I actually think that the way MAC chose to make these products available in specific countries only highlights the exclusion of certain regions. If they had just picked these same Gurus, not made a point of their nationality and had a wide release, maybe people wouldn’t have picked up on the fact that they had basically only deemed certain markets worthy. I think I would personally have chosen maybe someone from India and someone from Korea. India because they have a huge cosmetics market (I think I read a L’oreal report that cosmetic sales were something like US$4.5 billion) and they could have a dark-skinned representative from that region. Korea because they also have a huge appetite for makeup and also because K-beauty is hot right now, especially amongst other East Asians and people of East Asian descent in other regions. Their reach is far wider than their domestic market.
I’m sure that major brands have some sort of localisation team to make sure they don’t make some kind of faux pas or cause backlash. The launch parties certainly will have some local flavour to them; I’ve seen some touches that are distinctly local. At the same time, that’s not how the average MAC customer interacts with the brand, I don’t think. Most women will not be attending those parties, they’ll just go into the store whenever, or see the print ads and billboards which are essentially the same.
The point you made about the difference in the way average people and celebrities use the instagram app is salient, but I think that it matters less to companies whether the average user is posting pictures of themselves or not. Rather, I would think that it is more important that they are receptive to selfies posted by other instagrammers or celebrities and I think they are. They already have people like Megbaby and Genking who are celebrities primarily through social media, who probably could not have built up that much popularity if this form of self-promotion is still widely frowned upon.
I’m just not seeing that the cost of the campaign would dramatically increase if they choose to expand the release, or more importantly, that the launch would become unprofitable. In terms of marketing, I don’t think they would be advertising in tradtional print or TV media. The primary form of advertising is still via the Gurus they chose. The cost of distribution will increase, but that has not held MAC back from distributing collaborations with really niche artistes internationally before. I would venture to say that some of these Gurus may actually be better known internationally than let’s say Kiesza, especially among makeup consumers. They would probably have to pay the Gurus more to distribute in more markets, and the contracts may get more intricate, which then comes down to how the cost-benefit analysis works out I guess. Personally, I think it would still be profitable, since they could have larger production runs and can sell more units, particularly with these colours. Yes, they may be sort of bland to makeup junkies, but that also translates to them being quite wearable to the average woman. They might not buy it because of who MAC is collaborating with, they might just like the colour. I think we’re seeing that here in the comments, with people saying that they want the ones they can’t get and don’t care for the ones that they can.
Glenda
Hmm… Is it just me, or this is a really (for lack of a better word… Or actually for my lack of patience to try and find a more polite term) stupid idea?
Not making it available for everyone, just the bloggers’ respective areas? Hm. Yeah, I know brands have “Asia exclusives”, and that not all (beauty or otherwise) products make it to other continents (I get that, I’ve lived most of my life in Brazil), but I don’t get the point, really. Whatever, MAC just really tires and bores me sometimes.
And well, they are all basically the same. Definitely shades belonging to the same spectrum… Except for the odd red.
While this was nice of MAC, I wish there were more diversity here… there are thousands of gurus out there. Not to take away from the hard work these gurus put in…
Dawn Molero
I like this collection…..I wish I could get ones from several regions. I don’t think they look too very similar when you see the Instagram pics. Nice range of very wearable colors. I don’t want to have to think too hard about a color. I like effortless. I would never in a million years buy the metallics collection. This is perfect for the other MAC customer that wants pretty and easy. I’ll definitely pick up the 2 US shades.
Chloe
I love some of these colours, but like others said I wish they were all available to buy worldwide. I think it’s a bit redundant restricting them! Btw, on Alessandra’s Instagram post reveal she said the lipstick is a lustre finish – just letting you know, as your post says matte!! Excited to see your review on these, I can’t stay away from nudes.
Jackie
What a disappointment….the shades I want are not going to be available in US? I certainly don’t need the one that is, and I guess it’s good that they aren’t really unusual or special enough that I’ll lose sleep over it. I’d think it would mean more if we could buy and enjoy shades created by artists in other countries.
Alice
The only one that appeals to me is the red, but it won’t be available in the US. I actually find this launch confusing and fail to see the point. The really great thing about IG and YouTube is that they are (mostly) accessible worldwide and promote the sharing of ideas across the globe. Why is MAC restricting access to beauty products by region, rather than encouraging people to try things that may be less familiar? I really just don’t understand the concept.
Sorry to be so honest, but who had this absolutely stupid idea with the lipsticks being available only in the region ????? I cannot describe how stupid I find this idea.
WildDove
I like the look of the Alessandra, also GabrielZamora. Fun collabs with celebrity YouTube’rs and bloggers!
Primpcess
Omg, could this be any more boring? They basically all look the same. And the 1 different one is red…great! Another red lipstick that looks like all the other red lipsticks….*Yawn*
veronica
So there are no dark skinned beauty bloggers in the entire world Mac? Same thing with benefit cosmetics.
These are shades commonly found in the other zillions lipstick brands. I would have loved to see a more personalized “touch” on the packaging ( i.e. at least the name and signature of the guru in question). Plus the availability issue – not a brilliant idea. I’m not personally interested in the shades available in Canada/North America.
What’s the deal, MAC? They talk a good game about promoting diversity…and then they pick 10 different people, all within the light-medium range. There are a LOT of black and brown people on the beauty scene – it’s not cool to pretend we’re not even here.
Sundari
I liked Fleur’s lip color but am upset it won’t be available in US.
Betty
Why in the world would MAC not make it available all over if they’re making them anyway?? 3 of the 4 I like are not going to be available in the US: The Real Fouz, Alessandra and Fleur de Force – what a tease.
Also, where is the diversity MAC? Where are the brown and black bloggers?
Ugh. Im very disappointed.
Monica
I’m bummed the only shade I am interested in (the pinky brown) won’t be available in the states. And it would have been nice to see a little diversity. Oh, well…at least I save the money.
Joanna
Um….the colours probably suit a lot of people, but why are they all the same (plus red, the most basic lip colour in the history of lip colour.)
I’m also somewhat disappointed by the lack of diversity in the “beauty gurus” they’ve selected. They do come from a variety of different countries, but they all have the basic same look. Are there no black or east Asian beauty gurus?
MAC used to be about that- but this campaign illustrates some of the issues I have with Instagram beauty gurus in general: Everyone is starting to look the same. It’s lips, brows, lashes and contour.
Maybe I’m just crabby, but these lipsticks all look the same. And maybe that’s because all the beauty gurus are looking the same.
I know at this point I’m saying what everyone else has said, but really? All nudes, beiges, pinks, and one red? No variety?? And speaking of no variety … where are the people deeper than light medium? This really isn’t much of a “global” campaign. Even if they wanted to target specific regions (which is a dumb idea in it of itself) there is so much more diversity within those regions than what they are promoting. Also, no point in getting attached to any of the colors since most are not available here. Overall, I’m really disappointed. Just one more reason as to why I don’t shop at Mac anymore (though not being cruelty free is far and away the #1 reason).
Hmm, the 2 US slated ones look like a darker and lighter version of eachother. The Aussie slated lipstick actually sounds very pretty; Grapefruit Pink! Other than that, nothing earth shattering with these shades.
marmars
I for one can never have too many soft peachy coraly shades
will definitely try them out in store
I like the Samantha shade. Wish the Marie was available in Canada. Those are the only 2 I’d wear.
Linde
Great, so even though I basically live in two countries (The Netherlands on weekdays and Belgium on the weekend) and all my neighbouring countries have one (UK, France and Germany), I won’t get any…
Oh my good grief. The only one that’s even remotely interesting is the one from Brazil and I won’t be able to get it in Canada. I feel like this collection should’ve been named “Beauty Gurus Who Wear Nothing But Nudes”. UGHHHHHH. So boring!
Irina
I really don’t like how mac is releasing them. I don’t live in any of those countries so I can’t get any. Thank god almost all of those shades look the same, though and therefore I don’t feel like I should to get them because they’re nothing unique, but still.
Terry
one word NO!
Anastasia
Disappointed in MAC, where are my brown-skin, melanin infused beauty gurus?
Also the need to only release certain shades in certain regions is annoying because they could atleast be an online exclusive.. but these are all YAWN.
AnonGirl
*yawn* Boring. When you and the other bloggers did the first blogger collection the colors were more unique and different. These look way too similar. Boring and shows how much people think alike now.
How disappointing, Samantha Ravndahl’s very fair skintone and penchant for pale pink lipstick does NOT represent Canada’s population but that’s the only shade we’ll be able to get? why is MAC moving in such a weird promo direction? I can’t believe I almost miss their constant waves of limited edition themed collections. A collection based on internet beauty gurus that found their audience online instead of their home countries means their audience is necessarily international NOT local.
Wow, so much criticism over this collection. The colours were created by each blogger according to their personal taste so MAC had no control over the final results. Coincidentally, the shades turned out to be all in the nude range. Nothing they can do if nude is the massive preference when it comes to lipstick. Maybe that is why they decided to restrict the selling to each blogger’s area. Had the final result been different – with a more variation in the shade range – maybe the availability would’ve been different as well.
The one thing I agree is the lack of Asian and African representatives but I’m thinking MAC will release a second round of customized shades with new bloggers.
My nitpick is once again related to the packaging. Wish MAC had customized the packaging for this collection with each blogger’s signature in the cap or perhaps a different colour.
Last but not least I do love the colours created by the bloggers. I will surely get the one for my region – Brazil – and will try to get from other regions as well 🙂
This is the most boring lipstick collection I’ve ever seen.
Prisci
I loved reading all the previous comments on this post. Very good points are being made about the collection only being available in certain areas (which sucks) and it’s annoying seeing only lighter skin tones being represented.
I would, however, very much like to purchase all of these with the exception of one or two shades. I love nudes and it’s what I wear everyday. I don’t know if MAC had any say in the shades or not, but either way, I do think these colors are “easy” to wear and appeal to lots of folks.
SNH
Ugh. Why not make it available to everyone everywhere?! I do not care for the gurus representing my regional area or their color. I wish I could get Sam’s color and the Real Fouz!
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!
Geez, except for the last one they are basically all the same. How boring.
I couldn’t agree more!
So not all will be available in the US???
So…..beige is this Summer’s nude?
Are we back in the 90’s?
Phooey! I’m wearing Barbie pink 4ever!
I’m there with you!
YES!!!!! Me too 🙂
Likewise!! Pink for life!!
My full name is Alessandra (everyone calls me Ally for short) you can BET I am getting that lipstick with my name on it!
Lucky me it’s in a shade I wear!
Yay more boring neutrals (bc red is also considered a neutral). Obviously they are pretty colors and I’ll probably buy at least one, because that’s what I do, but how many neutral nudes, pinks, and beiges does a person need?
Variations on a nude theme ? ?.
Save for the lone red, these are so similar. *yawn*
Totally brilliant promotion!! Good job MAC. It’s too bad the ones I like best won’t be available here, but I’m still excited to see how this collection looks when worn.
Gorgeous lipsticks.
I’m genuinely pissed Mac is making them worldwide! I love Sam so I’d like her shade but I live in the US.
Apparently the only ones I’m interested in won’t be sold in my region. 🙁
I’m a little disappointed there isn’t any dark skin person. I want to buy from the collection but I’m not sure which color to get it.
Yeah I agree with you Kelvene and Isa . Where’s any woman of color? No Africa? I’m not going to purchase the products in this collection, because it is too non representative , MAC should definitely include more people of color, have shades for darker skin tones and have better availbilty .
I noticed that too. Ah well. won’t be getting my coins This collection.
Where is the one for Asia? We’re a pretty big market, MAC! I’m sure you already knew since you started testing on animals just to be able to sell to the Chinese, so why no representation here?
I hate the idea of regional exclusives for a global brand. Especially since if I understand right, these people are all youtubers? Youtube is a global platform and they will likely have viewers who want to “support” them by buying their stuff all across the globe. Actually, that will be true no matter their social media platform. So why make this release regional exclusive? To increase sales of scalpers on ebay?
MAC certainly does do promo throughout Asia, but the nature of the campaigns are quite different and this one would really not appeal to markets in say, China or Japan, based on what I know of their beauty promo culture. I feel like this campaign targets one specific demographic in the beauty blogosphere — even though it’s global, the target audience here looks like regions that use instagram heavily. Chinese use different social media platforms (secretly, because most are blocked by the government!) and beauty blogging is quite different depending on the different country. Or in Japan, for comparison, there is an uptick in youtube use because of changes to phone plans and the way people stream videos now while on the train, and instagram is not that popular (taking pictures of your face and publicly self-aggrandizing is pretty frowned upon). Ultimately, the nature of a global marketing campaign is going to be pretty localized when there are really different beauty standards and concerns and a different type of media consumption in Asia. I think if MAC truly tried to do a worldwide social media one-size-fits all campaign it would have been less effective. I agree with the commenters that it is very light-skin heavy here, but a lot of MAC campaigns target predominantly darker skin demographics too — they are not egregiously light skin-oriented like Guerlain or some of the high fashion/high beauty brands.
I am actually in Asia, and I would say that we do use those social media channels quite extensively. I know facebook and other sites are blocked by the Chinese government, but Asia is more than just China. Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Philipines, India, etc are all part of Asia too, and they all have their own social media stars. Pony, anyone? It would not have been difficult to find someone to collab with, even if it’s just to have a “token” Asian.
I understand that taking and posting pictures of oneself is perceived to be ego-stroking and immodest by many Japanese, but I personally believe that is changing, especially in the demographic most targeted by cosmetic companies. I’m not Japanese, so I can’t speak from first hand experience nor do I want say that I know much about their society, so I’ll just cite a survey conducted by JTB Tourism Research and Consulting Co. that in 2016, Instagram was used by one out of five respondents, but usage grew 5.4 percentage points year over year and that the reach of Instagram rises when it comes to females.
From what I’ve seen in my own country, and when I’ve travelled to other countries in Asia, MAC seems to have pretty much the same promos as other places. The shops right now are featuring the work it out collection, with exactly the same promotional images and the advertisements in the magazines are the same images too. They didn’t even really promote the Year of the Rooster stuff any differently or make a bigger deal out of it, and I’m living in a country where 75% of the population is ethnically Chinese and do celebrate Chinese New Year.
Also, this is MAC. Their campaigns are not really such a big deal these days, with a huge media blitz that would go on for months. It will launch, it will be hyped up for about 2 weeks, and then they will be on to the next limited edition promotion. I doubt there is that there is really that much thought given to each promotional campaign these days, this included. So yeah, I’m not that inclined to think that they deliberated on whether including the Asia-Pacific region would dampen their campaign or not. Maybe this one has even less resources given to it than others like Mariah Carey; it doesn’t really seem like a big launch. The packaging of the lipstick bullets seem to be standard MAC. My perception is that this is essentially assembling a group of Gurus, having them “create” a colour and then depending on those gurus to do most of the marketing for them.
I agree that MAC is one of the most inclusive brands overall, which is also partly why this campaign struck me as odd. I’m not actually offended as such, it just seems odd that they wouldn’t want to generate sales from this market.
This is all really interesting, I’m glad I commented — thank you for the insight! I only commented as to China and Japan, because I have a bit more familiarity with those two countries, which together comprise a GDP almost equivalent to the United States. Japan and Korea are also important trend setters in fashion in Asia (and increasingly China). So American globally-oriented businesses typically really take into account how things are going to land in China, and also Japan. There are definitely other significant Asian markets and markets that should be taken into account, I certainly don’t want to talk anymore than I already have been on guesses and projections from my own cultural standpoint, haha.
Though the marketing advertisements may be roughly the same campaign in different countries, I’m sure they have a local team tailor the release to that location. That’s at least standard practice in the industry – to make sure there are not some cultural insensitivities. At least in Japan, the release parties related to MAC are extremely different from the launch releases they do in Santa Monica, California for the same campaigns. It’s quite possible that people are posting more “immodest” type things in Japan, but, anecdotally, even though I’ve seen an increase in Japanese people using instagram, for the most part it is posts that are not of oneself (i.e. pictures of food, scenery, etc.). It would make sense that eventually mainstream celebrity instagram users have a trickle-down effect and influence how average people use the app, but I’m not entirely convinced that it is happening. Anyway, that’s a bit off topic.
To go back to your original post, I think brands probably ideally would love to sell everything everywhere, but that would probably greatly increase the cost of the campaign, and a lot of these beauty gurus probably only have contractual management and representation for certain countries. In any case, yeah, it is a smaller MAC release and campaign.
Thanks for responding, this is an interesting conversation about the role of social media and marketing from different cultural perspectives . 🙂
Oh, China and Japan are the most desirable markets in the region, there is no doubt or debate about that. I just disagreed with the notion that Asia as a whole didn’t get any representation because Asians as a whole don’t use Instagram. Or that this kind of campaign is inherently unappealing to Asians.
I actually think that the way MAC chose to make these products available in specific countries only highlights the exclusion of certain regions. If they had just picked these same Gurus, not made a point of their nationality and had a wide release, maybe people wouldn’t have picked up on the fact that they had basically only deemed certain markets worthy. I think I would personally have chosen maybe someone from India and someone from Korea. India because they have a huge cosmetics market (I think I read a L’oreal report that cosmetic sales were something like US$4.5 billion) and they could have a dark-skinned representative from that region. Korea because they also have a huge appetite for makeup and also because K-beauty is hot right now, especially amongst other East Asians and people of East Asian descent in other regions. Their reach is far wider than their domestic market.
I’m sure that major brands have some sort of localisation team to make sure they don’t make some kind of faux pas or cause backlash. The launch parties certainly will have some local flavour to them; I’ve seen some touches that are distinctly local. At the same time, that’s not how the average MAC customer interacts with the brand, I don’t think. Most women will not be attending those parties, they’ll just go into the store whenever, or see the print ads and billboards which are essentially the same.
The point you made about the difference in the way average people and celebrities use the instagram app is salient, but I think that it matters less to companies whether the average user is posting pictures of themselves or not. Rather, I would think that it is more important that they are receptive to selfies posted by other instagrammers or celebrities and I think they are. They already have people like Megbaby and Genking who are celebrities primarily through social media, who probably could not have built up that much popularity if this form of self-promotion is still widely frowned upon.
I’m just not seeing that the cost of the campaign would dramatically increase if they choose to expand the release, or more importantly, that the launch would become unprofitable. In terms of marketing, I don’t think they would be advertising in tradtional print or TV media. The primary form of advertising is still via the Gurus they chose. The cost of distribution will increase, but that has not held MAC back from distributing collaborations with really niche artistes internationally before. I would venture to say that some of these Gurus may actually be better known internationally than let’s say Kiesza, especially among makeup consumers. They would probably have to pay the Gurus more to distribute in more markets, and the contracts may get more intricate, which then comes down to how the cost-benefit analysis works out I guess. Personally, I think it would still be profitable, since they could have larger production runs and can sell more units, particularly with these colours. Yes, they may be sort of bland to makeup junkies, but that also translates to them being quite wearable to the average woman. They might not buy it because of who MAC is collaborating with, they might just like the colour. I think we’re seeing that here in the comments, with people saying that they want the ones they can’t get and don’t care for the ones that they can.
Hmm… Is it just me, or this is a really (for lack of a better word… Or actually for my lack of patience to try and find a more polite term) stupid idea?
Not making it available for everyone, just the bloggers’ respective areas? Hm. Yeah, I know brands have “Asia exclusives”, and that not all (beauty or otherwise) products make it to other continents (I get that, I’ve lived most of my life in Brazil), but I don’t get the point, really. Whatever, MAC just really tires and bores me sometimes.
And well, they are all basically the same. Definitely shades belonging to the same spectrum… Except for the odd red.
Oh well.
While this was nice of MAC, I wish there were more diversity here… there are thousands of gurus out there. Not to take away from the hard work these gurus put in…
I like this collection…..I wish I could get ones from several regions. I don’t think they look too very similar when you see the Instagram pics. Nice range of very wearable colors. I don’t want to have to think too hard about a color. I like effortless. I would never in a million years buy the metallics collection. This is perfect for the other MAC customer that wants pretty and easy. I’ll definitely pick up the 2 US shades.
I love some of these colours, but like others said I wish they were all available to buy worldwide. I think it’s a bit redundant restricting them! Btw, on Alessandra’s Instagram post reveal she said the lipstick is a lustre finish – just letting you know, as your post says matte!! Excited to see your review on these, I can’t stay away from nudes.
What a disappointment….the shades I want are not going to be available in US? I certainly don’t need the one that is, and I guess it’s good that they aren’t really unusual or special enough that I’ll lose sleep over it. I’d think it would mean more if we could buy and enjoy shades created by artists in other countries.
The only one that appeals to me is the red, but it won’t be available in the US. I actually find this launch confusing and fail to see the point. The really great thing about IG and YouTube is that they are (mostly) accessible worldwide and promote the sharing of ideas across the globe. Why is MAC restricting access to beauty products by region, rather than encouraging people to try things that may be less familiar? I really just don’t understand the concept.
I like the cool beige one but we shall see!
Sorry to be so honest, but who had this absolutely stupid idea with the lipsticks being available only in the region ????? I cannot describe how stupid I find this idea.
I like the look of the Alessandra, also GabrielZamora. Fun collabs with celebrity YouTube’rs and bloggers!
Omg, could this be any more boring? They basically all look the same. And the 1 different one is red…great! Another red lipstick that looks like all the other red lipsticks….*Yawn*
So there are no dark skinned beauty bloggers in the entire world Mac? Same thing with benefit cosmetics.
These are shades commonly found in the other zillions lipstick brands. I would have loved to see a more personalized “touch” on the packaging ( i.e. at least the name and signature of the guru in question). Plus the availability issue – not a brilliant idea. I’m not personally interested in the shades available in Canada/North America.
What’s the deal, MAC? They talk a good game about promoting diversity…and then they pick 10 different people, all within the light-medium range. There are a LOT of black and brown people on the beauty scene – it’s not cool to pretend we’re not even here.
I liked Fleur’s lip color but am upset it won’t be available in US.
Why in the world would MAC not make it available all over if they’re making them anyway?? 3 of the 4 I like are not going to be available in the US: The Real Fouz, Alessandra and Fleur de Force – what a tease.
I love Sam, She’s a very talented canadian MUA in my opinion! But her lipstick shade would look horrid on me I think!
Also to agree with most people here, why the 50 shades of nude??? I get the bloggers created the shades but holy smokes is this overkill!
Also, where is the diversity MAC? Where are the brown and black bloggers?
Ugh. Im very disappointed.
I’m bummed the only shade I am interested in (the pinky brown) won’t be available in the states. And it would have been nice to see a little diversity. Oh, well…at least I save the money.
Um….the colours probably suit a lot of people, but why are they all the same (plus red, the most basic lip colour in the history of lip colour.)
I’m also somewhat disappointed by the lack of diversity in the “beauty gurus” they’ve selected. They do come from a variety of different countries, but they all have the basic same look. Are there no black or east Asian beauty gurus?
MAC used to be about that- but this campaign illustrates some of the issues I have with Instagram beauty gurus in general: Everyone is starting to look the same. It’s lips, brows, lashes and contour.
Maybe I’m just crabby, but these lipsticks all look the same. And maybe that’s because all the beauty gurus are looking the same.
I love your site forever, Christine.
I know at this point I’m saying what everyone else has said, but really? All nudes, beiges, pinks, and one red? No variety?? And speaking of no variety … where are the people deeper than light medium? This really isn’t much of a “global” campaign. Even if they wanted to target specific regions (which is a dumb idea in it of itself) there is so much more diversity within those regions than what they are promoting. Also, no point in getting attached to any of the colors since most are not available here. Overall, I’m really disappointed. Just one more reason as to why I don’t shop at Mac anymore (though not being cruelty free is far and away the #1 reason).
Hmm, the 2 US slated ones look like a darker and lighter version of eachother. The Aussie slated lipstick actually sounds very pretty; Grapefruit Pink! Other than that, nothing earth shattering with these shades.
I for one can never have too many soft peachy coraly shades
will definitely try them out in store
I like the Samantha shade. Wish the Marie was available in Canada. Those are the only 2 I’d wear.
Great, so even though I basically live in two countries (The Netherlands on weekdays and Belgium on the weekend) and all my neighbouring countries have one (UK, France and Germany), I won’t get any…
Oh my good grief. The only one that’s even remotely interesting is the one from Brazil and I won’t be able to get it in Canada. I feel like this collection should’ve been named “Beauty Gurus Who Wear Nothing But Nudes”. UGHHHHHH. So boring!
I really don’t like how mac is releasing them. I don’t live in any of those countries so I can’t get any. Thank god almost all of those shades look the same, though and therefore I don’t feel like I should to get them because they’re nothing unique, but still.
one word NO!
Disappointed in MAC, where are my brown-skin, melanin infused beauty gurus?
Also the need to only release certain shades in certain regions is annoying because they could atleast be an online exclusive.. but these are all YAWN.
*yawn* Boring. When you and the other bloggers did the first blogger collection the colors were more unique and different. These look way too similar. Boring and shows how much people think alike now.
How disappointing, Samantha Ravndahl’s very fair skintone and penchant for pale pink lipstick does NOT represent Canada’s population but that’s the only shade we’ll be able to get? why is MAC moving in such a weird promo direction? I can’t believe I almost miss their constant waves of limited edition themed collections. A collection based on internet beauty gurus that found their audience online instead of their home countries means their audience is necessarily international NOT local.
Wow, so much criticism over this collection. The colours were created by each blogger according to their personal taste so MAC had no control over the final results. Coincidentally, the shades turned out to be all in the nude range. Nothing they can do if nude is the massive preference when it comes to lipstick. Maybe that is why they decided to restrict the selling to each blogger’s area. Had the final result been different – with a more variation in the shade range – maybe the availability would’ve been different as well.
The one thing I agree is the lack of Asian and African representatives but I’m thinking MAC will release a second round of customized shades with new bloggers.
My nitpick is once again related to the packaging. Wish MAC had customized the packaging for this collection with each blogger’s signature in the cap or perhaps a different colour.
Last but not least I do love the colours created by the bloggers. I will surely get the one for my region – Brazil – and will try to get from other regions as well 🙂
This is the most boring lipstick collection I’ve ever seen.
I loved reading all the previous comments on this post. Very good points are being made about the collection only being available in certain areas (which sucks) and it’s annoying seeing only lighter skin tones being represented.
I would, however, very much like to purchase all of these with the exception of one or two shades. I love nudes and it’s what I wear everyday. I don’t know if MAC had any say in the shades or not, but either way, I do think these colors are “easy” to wear and appeal to lots of folks.
Ugh. Why not make it available to everyone everywhere?! I do not care for the gurus representing my regional area or their color. I wish I could get Sam’s color and the Real Fouz!