Anyone else have major Valentine’s Day vibes?

Although I’ve never spent a Valentine’s Day with a loved one (yet!), it’s still one of my favourite holidays.  What’s not to love about hearts, pink, and pretty much all-around cute things (Umm have you been to Indigo yet?). So naturally, when I laid my eyes on MAC’s new spring collection, Flamingo Park, which launches February 4 (March for international locations), I was all full-fledged hearts and glitter, and everything Valentine’s Day appropriate.

This collection includes eyeshadows, pigments, nail lacquers, lipsticks, lip pencils, Cremesheen lip glosses, powdered blush, liners (Technakohl Liner), mascara (Haute & Naughty Lash), and beauty powders. So basically, quite the collection.

Perhaps what’s most striking about the whole thing is that a lot of the colours are – you guessed it – pink! I received five items from the 40-plus collection; two of the lipsticks, one of the Cremesheen glosses, a blush and the beauty powder.

There are nine lipsticks eight with one online-exclusive shade) in this release, some of them already available in the permanent collection (Saint Germain, Please Me, Silly… I’m looking at all of you). I haven’t seen all the shades, however, from what I can gather from the press materials, they are all shades of pink or coral.  The ones I received are Long Legged & Fabulous, a soft baby pink in a cremesheen and pearl finish, as well as Be Silly, a hot fuchsia pink in a matte formula. Since probably every MAC lipstick I own and gravitate towards are these types of shades, I was over the moon to try them out.  Unfortunately there is no special packaging with this collection, but that’s okay (does anyone else feel guilty Back to MAC-ing those?).

At first glance, Be Silly looks very similar to other MAC shades that I have from other collections, but once I applied it, it’s more bright pink on than a deep fuchsia, which it kind of looks like in the tube. This one is a matte, so it is long lasting, but not as drying as I’m usually used to with MAC matte (wow, trying saying that out loud) formulations, but I think it might be because I’m so used to liquid lipsticks that dry out your lips that this one doesn’t really bother me. Long Legged and Fabulous is a really nice baby pink that isn’t too bright, so it’s definitely more wearable than say, Saint Germain, which is almost like a white pink (it’s not for the faint of heart, this one was my clubbing lipstick when I was like 21). The cremesheen formula makes it very comfortable to wear, however, keep it on hand as you’ll have to apply this guy more often because it’s a lighter colour and a softer finish.

For the glosses, MAC has included five Cremesheens in this collection. I received the colour Playful Petal, an electric magenta shade with shimmer in it.  I’m not a big gloss girl in general, and especially when it comes to MAC’s Lipglasses, since they are so sticky (so happy they didn’t include those in this collection), but I was pleasantly surprised with this guy.  I layered this over top of Be Silly since the colours were similar and I wanted to see what the lipstick looked like jazzed up since it’s a matte. They were actually quite the combo and I found these very comfortable to wear (not sticky at all). The colour did fade a bit throughout the day, so I just kept applying the gloss and I still got that nice fuchsia colour. I think by itself if it’s layered over a nude lipstick it would give you a really pretty lighter pink.

As for the face products, there are seven blushes in this collection (six you can buy in store and the seventh as an online exclusive). Again, all the colours tend to lean towards reds, pinks and corals. I received the colour Oh My, which is a reddish mid-tone coral in a satin finish. I’m going to start by saying that if you have a pale complexion like me, this blush may not be for you. Even the lightest of hands (I literally dip my brush into it quickly) will give you more colour than what you’re used to.  This blush is bright; it’s so pigmented that I don’t think I’ll ever run out of it.  It does go on quite harsh, so I have to go back in with my foundation brush to basically tone it down.  This would be more appropriate for darker skin tones. I don’t really recommend it for someone pale like me.

The last item I got from the collection was the Beauty Powder in Sunny Surprise, a soft peach. I’ve always been confused by this product. Is it a powder? A blush? Well from what I can gather, it’s a makeup finisher.  I used it as a setting powder, which I was hesitant to do since it’s peach, but it doesn’t really apply like that once on. It does give you a little bit of colour, but nothing like how it looks in the package.  Some people use it as a highlight, but I liked it as a setting powder, similar to how I would use one of the Hourglass Ambient Powders.

Overall, I really the items I got to try from this collection. Although there are lots of items that are available year-round in the permanent collection, there’s lots of stuff in here that’s worth picking up. Plus, who can resist pink lipstick?

Are you excited for MAC’s Flamingo Park collection?

Please note, I was sent these products from PR. All opinions are my own.

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