Dark & stormy: A look feat. the MAC Smoky Metallic x9 palette

MAC title

There’s no doubt, when one thinks of eyeshadows, few brands come to mind. One of them is definitely MAC.

I have my fair share of MAC shadows, including a 15-colour curated MAC Pro palette that I bought in Vegas years ago. At C$19 a pop though, their shadows can get quite pricey. No doubt the most bang for your buck you can get is definitely a palette of shadows and MAC is finally joining the bandwagon when it comes to releasing these as part of their permanent collection.

Introducing Eyes on MAC, a collection of well-edited palettes available in either nine shades or 15. Although you get a little less product than the full-size shadows, these retail for considerably less than buying each shade separately. In fact, the nine-shade palette is C$42 (a C$63 value; so essentially almost the same price, well a little more, as two full-size shadows) and the 15-shade for C$85 (a $192 value).

Open palette

These actually became part of the permanent collection last year, however, I recently received one of the nine-shade palettes in Smoky Metallic. Upon further research, it looks like this guy is a Macy’s exclusive, so I’m not sure if it’s available here in Canada.

The palette contains glitters, shimmers and mattes in the follow shades: Simple Sensation, Give Me Fire, Black Factor, Filament, Spice Bar, Carbon, By the Silver Moon, Richy-Rich, and Petrol. Although you get less product, the shade range in here is great, and let’s be real, what are the odds you’re gonna hit pan on all of these. Besides, at this price, this is a great way to try out an assortment of MAC shadows and weed out the good from the bad. If you hit pan, then you might as well go out and buy the full size.

Final 2

Just like any other MAC shadow the formulation on these are great. In fact, I couldn’t wait to dive in and try this guy out, so when my boyfriend told me he wanted to take me out for dinner this past Saturday, I grabbed this guy right away (part of the excitement of going out is getting an opportunity to try out and wear all my new makeup, but shhh don’t tell him that..). I wanted to try out an assortment of the shadows to really get a good idea of how well these work.  Some of them I already own in my collection (like Carbon), so I chose to focus more on the ones that aren’t really conventional for daytime and opted to create this gold baroque-inspired look by layering some of the shades.

Steps

      1. Fill in your brows (I used the New York Color Lovatics brow pencil with the Rimmel London Brow This Way Eyebrow Gel). After, lay down an eyeshadow primer (I used Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer in Fair) and then with a fluffy crease brush, grab the colour Simple Sensation, a matte light taupe, and lightly brush that into the crease.

2. With a flat shader brush, pat Black Factor, a matte dark grey, all over the lid area. Then, with the fluffy crease brush, blend out the edges.

3. With the other side of that flat shader brush, spray it with a setting spray then pick up the colour Richy-Rich, a glittery dark gold, and pat it over the matte grey to add some dimension.

4. Skip the liner and instead apply some mascara and falsies. For the lower lash line, brush on Black Factor and then Richy-Rich in the inner corner. Finish the bottom lashes with mascara.

final 1

Currently, on MAC’s website are six different palettes in the Eyes on MAC Times Nine collection and three in the 15 collection.  If you can’t get your hands on the Smoky Metallics one, the Navy Times Nine one is very similar.

If you love MAC shadows, then I would definitely look into purchasing these since the value on the palettes are great, plus they are small enough that you can just toss them in your makeup bag before heading out the door. These are also perfect for those just getting into makeup and want to dabble with some higher-end products.  There’s a reason MAC shadows are so popular and it took MAC a while to finally release some brand-curated shadow palettes, but I’m glad they finally got around to doing it.

Have you tried any of the Eyes on MAC nine or 15 palettes?

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

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