Didn't really bought much from this collection as usually I'm not a bronzer / summer kinda person. The only items I bought were Sun blonde e/s, Surf USA e/s, the cheek powder (yes, by now all of u would know that I'm totally a blush person) and the Surf the ocean crushed metal pigments (the silver - gold stack).
The star product which attracted me the most was the turqoise e/s in Surf USA. Being a turqoise e/s addict, I had to swatch this on my hand when I saw it. It looked beautiful in the pan and swatched beautifully. It has a wonderful color pay off and excellent texture. For ladies who love colors and turqoise especially, it's a must have. It isn't similar to any other MAC turqoise / teal e/s that I own.
Click for enlarged pic. Left to right: Surf USA, Parrot, Big T, Pompous Blue
Click for enlarged pic. Left to right: Surf Baby, Parrot, Big T, Pompous blue
As for Sun blonde e/s, it's kinda a mustard Yellow. It's not Yellow Yellow as Bright Sunshine (a PRO color) or chrome yellow is, but still a pretty wearable color. It's kinda similar to gorgeous gold but minus the green undertone that gorgeous gold has. It also has a pretty decent texture and color payoff.
Click for enlarged pic. From left to right: Sun blonde, Gorgeous gold, Going bananas, Bright sunshine, Chrome yellow
Click for enlarged pic. From left to right: Sun blonde, Gorgeous gold, Going bananas, Bright sunshine, Chrome yellow
I understand from some posts in Specktra that some ladies have difficulty in making the crushed metallic pigments to work for them. The crushed metallic pigments have thicker consistency than the normal pigments and yes, they need to be crushed before using (hence the name Crushed). They swatched wonderfully on the hand, but when applied, isn't as pigmented, BUT, the color can be built up. I find that instead of using a cream base, a powder e/s base is better to help the crushed pigments to adhere to the skin as I find that the crushed metallic pigments has a bit of a creamy texture to it. Less is more, slowly build the color instead of loadin it all at once on the eye, other wise u might experience lots of fall out. So far, I've tried the silver and the gold on my eyes and I'm loving both. The silver kinda reminds me of Pro pigment in platinum and I have nothing similar to the gold. It looks somewhat of a tarnished gold. Definitely not as yellow as golden lemon pigment. I find the crushed metallic pigment personally to be quite a good buy than the normal full size bottle of pigments as u get a lot of product and only a little is needed for application. I can see this lasting forever for me. Here's Surf the ocean crushed metal pigments which i bought.
Click for enlarged pic
Click for enlarged pic
Click for enlarged pic
Last but not least of all, the My paradise cheek powder. This was the first one to be sold out at our local MAC counters - most probably due to its beautiful hibiscus imprint of it. Even though i've 100 odd blushers from MAC, I don't have any thing that's similar to it. It's kinda of a orangy coral with more orange rather than pink undertones which most of my other coral blushers have. It's definitely not similar to Goddess blush (also a LE) which is much more orangy than this. To be honest, I bought this mostly for collecting purpose and I probably won't be using this. I don't wanna ruin the Hibiscus imprint :P
Click for enlarged pic
Swatch of Hibiscus blush to be coming up soon....
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