Hello everyone!

How has your wallet held up to the festive season? Despite not feeling the Christmas spirit, the last holiday had almost depleted my bank account! I blame it on MAC and its colossal of a holiday collection. Alongside the Magic of the Night collection launched about three months ago (or last year, if I were to exaggerate) were oodles of holiday gift sets in three categories namely Irresistibly Charming, Enchanted Eve and Viva Glamorous which of course, were beyond my budget. As if these were not enough to bankrupt beauty addicts like myself (and I still had to fund my trip to Japan 😥 ), there were celebrity collaborations including Mariah Carey, Dita Von Teese and Ellie Goulding – all released in the month of December!

HELP! I CAN’T KEEP UP!

I have a pile of lipsticks in my room waiting to be reviewed but first, let’s talk about the Magic of the Night collection – a moderately big one with 4 lipsticks (in Please Me, All Fired Up, Evening Rendezvous & Dark Side), 2 lip pencils (in Redd & Nightmoth), 5 Colourdrenched Pigments (in Ascent of Glamour, Moon is Blue, Tonight’s the Night!, No Taboos & Night Thrill), 2 Pearlglide Intense Eye Liners (in Petrol Blue & Black Swan) and 1 In Extra Dimension Skinfinish in Shaft of Gold.  Fortunately, the lipsticks were mostly repeats of shades that were already permanent. so I didn’t have to dig deep into my pocket this time around. Furthermore, with just a single new shade in this collection, it didn’t take me long to decide what to get.

Festive colours were aptly chosen for this theme as the lip products were all decked out fully in luxurious purple reflective casing, thereby shying away from the standard sombre black packaging. The eye and face products, on the other hand, were adorned in a darker shade of aquatic blue. In view of the efforts made to pimp up the packaging, naturally the products would cost a little more. But thankfully, they were still on the affordable side.

After a series of disappointing  and subpar lipsticks (especially those annoying lustres) released throughout the year, there’s finally one I can rave about. Evening Rendezvous boasts intense colour payoff in just one swipe and flaunts an emollient and slightly lustrous texture even though it is technically a matte. It is neither drying nor overtly balmy, which I felt was the perfect finish. On top of that, it has mostly opaque coverage with a great lasting effect because it only started wearing off after 4 hours. This is a gorgeous universal shade of purple which complements all skin tones. I have seen similar colours on dark skin tones (on Indians, to be precise) and thought that they pulled it off really well!

Strangely, being the only new lipstick shade in this lineup, it would have been expected to be among the first to sell out but instead, it was Dark Side that got greyed out on the website. There must be some kind of magic in this limited edition packaging because people actually didn’t mind paying more for a permanent shade! Unbelievable. Based on the reviews I’ve read so far, the general consensus I got was that it’s a high-performing lipstick, so I don’t understand how it’s not snapped up yet.

Pure Heroine is pretty close, so if you’ve missed out on the Lorde collection about 2 years ago, you should consider getting Evening Rendezvous!

And that’s about it! Do stay tuned for more beauty updates coming your way! 🙂

Also, my sincere apologies if you have been waiting for my lipstick reviews (the last time I did one was more than a month ago, shame on me!). Final year project has been a total bitch lately although it is technically the school holidays but I will still try to find time to bring you the latest beauty reviews even if it means having to sacrifice a few hours of my sleep time!

Thanks for reading and have a blessed week ahead! 🙂

MAC Magic of the Night collection is now available on MACCosmetics.com as well as in stores (may be pulled off the shelves by now, so please call to check before heading down).