Hello everyone!

September saw a mammoth 3-part collection from MAC that launched quite a number of limited edition products. But if you have been keeping tabs on beauty news, you would have probably seen this coming.

A year ago, the cosmetics giant announced that they were looking for new faces to front their Fall 2015 collection. But instead of using stereotypical models, they selected six ordinary people (yeah, kinda like the Dove beauty campaign) out of the presumably thousands of participants of the MACnificent Me contest whereby they had to submit a photo of themselves and a 100-word life mantra. The contest was open to international entries from 13 countries across the globe including 5 from Asia Pacific (Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand). I remember feeling so bummed out that Singapore wasn’t one of the eligible countries (and I still wonder why?!) because I was really keen in taking part! I mean, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Any makeup lover would die to model for MAC Cosmetics, am I right?

Oh well, at least we get to lay out hands on this gorgeous collection (because MAC isn’t available in many countries)! But as you know me, I’m more interested in the lip products than anything else and this collection has seriously tons of them. Each part of the collection features either the Patentpolish lip pencils, lipsticks or Mattenes (alongside other eye and face products). Not wanting to live off bread alone for the entire month, I only purchased some Mattenes and lipsticks.

The MACnificent Me: Ben & Ji Won collection brings 4 new Mattene shades (in Personal Pick, Strutting Fabulous, Own The Look & Power My Spirit) as well as 5 Pro Longwear Paint Pot (in Stroke My Ego, Nice Composure, Frozen Violet, Stormy Pink & Imaginary), a Kohl Power Eye Pencil (in Feline), a Haute & Naughty Too Black Mascara, 2 Studio Nail Lacquer (in Simply Swinging & Blog This) and a 215 Medium Shader Brush. Not sure why the recent MAC’s obsession with purple but the Mattenes, cream shadow and nail polish are all in different variation of mesmorising purple hues.

Veteran MAC users would be familiar with the Mattene formula as they pop up as part of a new collection almost every year. But for those who don’t, basically Mattenes are Mattes with a creamier finish (maybe a blend of Matte and Cremesheen?) and they are usually packaged in those thin tubes shown above!

I will review the lipsticks on a separate post for easy reading. For now, enjoy my picks from the Mattene range 🙂

#1 Personal Pick

The only Mattene in this collection that’s not purple, Personal Pick has a lightweight and semi-opaque texture which leaves the lips feeling very moisturised and not too overwhelmed. However, it does tend to accentuate the lip lines a little. For me, it was easy to apply but I found the colour to be not very buildable. Therefore, no matter how much I applied, it still appeared somewhat thin and sheer.

Personal Pick doesn’t appear to have a strong vibrancy when swatched on the hand but it does look rather bright on the lips.

#2 Power My Spirit

The bullet of this lipstick came slightly ragged and based on the images that showed up on my Google search, it seems to be a common problem for this shade. Being partly Matte, it naturally harbours higher expectations from me but once again I was let down by the inconsistent and patchy payoff. Like Personal Pick, it is thin and emollient texture but this appears a lot runnier and harder to manage. When I pursed my lips in attempt to smooth out the colour, the unevenness became worse with an obvious ring around my mouth!

The poor opacity coupled with the uneven colour distribution of Power My Spirit is so comparable to Which Witch, I thought they were the same shade initially. But much as I disliked the latter (as you could tell from the largely negative review), it definitely performed a lot better than Power My Spirit in terms of colour payoff (more pigmented) and coverage (more opaque).

In conclusion, this purchase is downright disappointing. I had really high hopes for the Mattenes but these just won’t do. It’s so frustrating! The prices for MAC lipsticks keep creeping up but I don’t see the same for their quality

What do you think, ladies? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Thanks for reading 🙂

MAC MACnificent Me lipsticks (Mattene) are now available at MACCosmetics.com and at local stores.