kittykitkat
Active member
UGH NO! Mac was my go-to mid range makeup brand. Higher end products are more of a splurge for me as I'm only in high school. But now that seems like the direction MAC is heading in.... Why, makeup goddesses, why?!?!
MAC A Fantasy of Flowers Collection (February 6, 2014)
- Thread starter Naynadine
- Start date
purplevines
Well-known member
$19 CAD now tooThe lipstick prices went up to $16! They were $15 when these were released online on Thursday.. so I'm assuming those who ordered online were able to get them for $15 and once they're released next week, it's going to be $16 since all permanent lipsticks on their site is $16. Nordstrom still has the permanent for $15 though. I'm probably going to skip and wait for Playland.
Quote: Originally Posted by bulbasaur359
This explains why T has lippies at 16 bucks on her site. Glad I got SD and DD before the increase. Have to wait till Thursday and Friday to receive them tho. Cali can suck.
For some reason the dollar has really made me reconsider buying more lipsticks on Thursday... Although Libas descriptions are probably going to shut that idea down
Just sucks, I'm not getting any richer while the prices keep increasing!
josephine90
Well-known member
The price goes up but my pay check doesnt, now thats not fair lol..
CrimsonQuill157
Well-known member
MAC you are bout to lose a customer. I know it's just a dollar but damn. Not okay with this.
CrimsonQuill157
Well-known member
Exactly. $15 was a bit of a splurge for me since I'm in college and not working (yet).
Beautybuyer
Well-known member
They do it every year I think
allthingsglam
Well-known member
The lipsticks have been $15 dollars for awhile now
erine1881
Well-known member
Twice a year, every year. It's nothing new.
Miss Dynamite
Well-known member
Yep, sadly they do...they might be the greediest makeup company I've ever seen. If the prices get much higher, I'm not gonna buy anymore. I would hope they would stop eventually...or are we going to be seeing $30 lipsticks in 15 years?
allthingsglam
Well-known member
Mac is pushing me more and more to ysl mac is now a luxury highend makeup brand either that or I'm going back to nyx...........
CrimsonQuill157
Well-known member
I'm sorry, I didn't know... I've just started buying MAC since the PC collection.
kittykitkat
Active member
Lovely, but that doesn't look very reddish-coral at all to me! Looks almost like a pinky nude...maybe it's just the lighting doing that?Here is DD on me slightly lined with Riri woo lip liner. It is very sheer and build able..feels great on my lips!' I'm NC44 and loving this color on! hope this helps although not the best lghting
kanne
Well-known member
Phew, just checked the $AU prices, what a relief, we're still only paying double what the rest of the world is charged!
Azalea in the Afternoon is lovely, and I'm actually a big fan of the new Stereo Rose, so I think I'll pick up both when they are released.
Kristin Bacon
Well-known member
i thought ten yrs ago it was 14 for a lipstick or shadow?? maybe im wrong
Kristin Bacon
Well-known member
there price increase is nothing compared to gas or food. I feel like eating is so much more now then it was ten yrs ago!!
Kristin Bacon
Well-known member
same color as me and i jus ordered that one!! it looks nice. i cant wait to get it in my MacLuvin hands!!!
liba
Well-known member
OK, I spent hours playing with the collection today, trying everything every which way. I'd been feeling like this was going to be a "been there, done that" collection that I could easily use my older springtime lippies and blushes and get the same effect with.
Well, I was wrong. This is a heck of a spring collection. I'd say this is the nicest major spring collection since Spring Color Forecast, although it feels a little less like a big, wide-ranging collection like that one, and more like a very tightly edited collection where all the colors are in service of a very particular look, like Quite Cute or Liberty of London. Mac really hit the colors and formulas out of the park on this one, bringing really rich, glowing pastels that are actually super wearable, without any fuss or muss. Perfect levels of pigmentation, great range of application options where you can go sheerer or more opaque, blot down for a stain, and get anything from the barest hint of foolproof face color to a shining, crystal frost of the smoothest, most etherial proportions. I can't usually pull off a total pastel face look, because I am no spring chicken by any means, but this collection lets me get that look with zero extra effort and with a very soft effect that is extremely youth-giving and yet super high fashion, too. I was really impressed beyond my expectations and am buying a lot more than I was expecting. I don't even care that I may have some similar colors. Believe me, even when I can dupe the color pretty closely, I can't dupe the fairy and butterfly lightness of the textures. I'd be good to put some of my old favorites to rest in lieu of these new ones.
First off, I better deal with the MSFs. I didn't own the original PF, but I do have the 1st repromote of Stereo Rose from In the Groove. I got to look through a whole box of Perfect Toppings and some had a pretty decent amount of lavender, but these are not the old veins of the past, with those heavy metallic lavender thick ropey veins. Same thing goes for SR. This is definitely a trade off, but in my opinion, it's worth it, because these 2 MSFs are beyond perfect and glorious on their own, whether they live up to their old namesakes or not.
My old SR is very veined, but it is NOT smooth like the new one. The old one is a frost and glitter festival, with a strong, but somewhat uneven color. You have to buff it in, which then magnifies the pores and also cuts the wear time down. The new SR has lost the veins for the most part - although I wasn't able to go through a box of those to see the vein variety today, the one we used as the sample wasn't heavily marbleized. Instead it was mostly one SMOOOOOOOOOTH color, a very soft lingerie peach, like perfect silk stockings. It goes on so beautifully. I'd already tried a full face of PT ( more on that in a bit), but SR, which I wasn't originally going to even bother with, went on over my whole face like the most radiant veil of pure youth. I have no problem saying it's the equal of Elude, but for a greater range of skin tones, since there's no white in the mix. It won't give a lot of color unless you are hell bent for leather to turn it into a blush with lots of Fix+ etc. It's a skin perfector of the highest order, though, one of the nicest finishing powders I have ever seen from MAC. It's not frosty at all, and there is zero glitter. There isn't any gold or pink craziness, like old SR, but instead you have a color that is less frosty than the beauty powder from last year's Archie's Girls and Baking Beauties, and less sparkling than the newest EDSFs like Fairly Precious. It's so subtle in its effect, it makes Fairly Precious look kind of loud and bold and high-beam in comparison. It's also more subtle in its finish than Centre of Attention, which is seriously the only MSF I've ever backed up, because I can use it full-face without looking frosty or sprinkled with sugar. So basically, I'm saying the new SR surpasses even CoA, on me at NC15 and for many more skin tones. I do think very dark skin tones will be able to bring out a clearer peach coloring when using it, but it's not going to go ashy on anyone. The color is that well balanced. If you are fair, but not all the way in the coolest end of the spectrum or if you are medium toned, NC or NW, you are going to keel over when you try it - that's how good it is. I was pretty shocked and so was my buddy, who pushed me to try it, even though I'd spent all this time fiddling with Perfect Topping. Honestly, you could use PT as a highlight over a full face of SR 2.0 and achieve an incredible sculpted look without resorting to any sort of overt contouring. You'd be getting the look, just by allowing the extra peach of SR to smooth the parts of the face that benefit from a peachy counterpoint and PT for the parts of the face that could use an extra lift from the lavender hints.
Now for the lavender issues of PT. You will be able to find a PT that will give you more lavender, but this isn't necessarily ideal, unless perhaps you are very pale but also very sallow. Again, the texture is phenomenal and can easily be used full-face, rather than just as a highlighter, but if you are using one with emphasis on the lavender, you will run into giving yourself a somewhat ghostly effect, that walks a really fine line between ghostly, illuminating and ashy. It won't look ashy because it's got too much white, at least, but it will get a bit that way from how cool the lavender is. I'd say for most skin tones, you would be better off with a PT that goes a bit lighter on the lavender or keeps the lavender on one side of the pan so you can grab from it judiciously. Grabbing all lavender was not exactly the best look, even for me at NC15, and I'm at my palest and most neutral toned right now. It looked nice, but then when I tried SR on one side of my face, all over, compared to PT all over on the other side, you could see the difference in naturalness and healthy effect. The rest of PT is more of a nude/blush/peach than straight up pink. It's like one of those very soft, pale antique lingerie sort of pale peaches with just a hint of pink. If you want a full-on PINK highlight, with plenty of highlight and plenty of pink, you need Azalea in the Afternoon MB. OH MY THAT ONE IS BEYOND BEAUTIFUL if you're looking for the palest, prettiest, girliest pink with plenty of sheen. I will talk about it more in a bit. Meanwhile, PT is for full-face perfecting and illuminating and is just crazy lovely and radiant. It is sheer, it's not to be used as a blush for anyone, and it might be a little bleh on darker skin tones if you have one with lots of lavender. It will need a little care even on pale skin if you have a lot of lavender, too. Even still, it's very easy to use and hard to mess up, because of the wonderful texture. It's MUCH lest frosty than the beauty powders from Archie's Girls and I would say it's even a little less glowy than Elude. It's certainly less white-based than either the beauty powders or Elude or even Centre of Attention or even Forever Marilyn. It's less of a matte effect than FM, but it's also got less white and less color density than FM, so it's a softer, more natural look than FM, better for daytime, but totally doable for night.
All in all, LIBA says "forget about the naming fiasco and test these MSFs on their own strengths". If this is where MSFs are going for 2014, we are in for a HELL of a show, because PT and SR 2.0 are excellent, subtle, perfect for minimizing pores and adding the most natural, barely there glow, and good for these purposes for a very wide range of skin tones. Just don't expect old school MSFs you use as a blush or as obvious color, shimmer, frost and glitz. You won't get that here. You WILL get a very sophisticated face veil of the highest order and I would say either or both of them are well worth the money, even if you have a ton of other MAC skin finishes and beauty powders. Either of these will easily blow my Fairly Precious out of the water, for full face use, so what does that say? It says LOVE.
Well, I was wrong. This is a heck of a spring collection. I'd say this is the nicest major spring collection since Spring Color Forecast, although it feels a little less like a big, wide-ranging collection like that one, and more like a very tightly edited collection where all the colors are in service of a very particular look, like Quite Cute or Liberty of London. Mac really hit the colors and formulas out of the park on this one, bringing really rich, glowing pastels that are actually super wearable, without any fuss or muss. Perfect levels of pigmentation, great range of application options where you can go sheerer or more opaque, blot down for a stain, and get anything from the barest hint of foolproof face color to a shining, crystal frost of the smoothest, most etherial proportions. I can't usually pull off a total pastel face look, because I am no spring chicken by any means, but this collection lets me get that look with zero extra effort and with a very soft effect that is extremely youth-giving and yet super high fashion, too. I was really impressed beyond my expectations and am buying a lot more than I was expecting. I don't even care that I may have some similar colors. Believe me, even when I can dupe the color pretty closely, I can't dupe the fairy and butterfly lightness of the textures. I'd be good to put some of my old favorites to rest in lieu of these new ones.
First off, I better deal with the MSFs. I didn't own the original PF, but I do have the 1st repromote of Stereo Rose from In the Groove. I got to look through a whole box of Perfect Toppings and some had a pretty decent amount of lavender, but these are not the old veins of the past, with those heavy metallic lavender thick ropey veins. Same thing goes for SR. This is definitely a trade off, but in my opinion, it's worth it, because these 2 MSFs are beyond perfect and glorious on their own, whether they live up to their old namesakes or not.
My old SR is very veined, but it is NOT smooth like the new one. The old one is a frost and glitter festival, with a strong, but somewhat uneven color. You have to buff it in, which then magnifies the pores and also cuts the wear time down. The new SR has lost the veins for the most part - although I wasn't able to go through a box of those to see the vein variety today, the one we used as the sample wasn't heavily marbleized. Instead it was mostly one SMOOOOOOOOOTH color, a very soft lingerie peach, like perfect silk stockings. It goes on so beautifully. I'd already tried a full face of PT ( more on that in a bit), but SR, which I wasn't originally going to even bother with, went on over my whole face like the most radiant veil of pure youth. I have no problem saying it's the equal of Elude, but for a greater range of skin tones, since there's no white in the mix. It won't give a lot of color unless you are hell bent for leather to turn it into a blush with lots of Fix+ etc. It's a skin perfector of the highest order, though, one of the nicest finishing powders I have ever seen from MAC. It's not frosty at all, and there is zero glitter. There isn't any gold or pink craziness, like old SR, but instead you have a color that is less frosty than the beauty powder from last year's Archie's Girls and Baking Beauties, and less sparkling than the newest EDSFs like Fairly Precious. It's so subtle in its effect, it makes Fairly Precious look kind of loud and bold and high-beam in comparison. It's also more subtle in its finish than Centre of Attention, which is seriously the only MSF I've ever backed up, because I can use it full-face without looking frosty or sprinkled with sugar. So basically, I'm saying the new SR surpasses even CoA, on me at NC15 and for many more skin tones. I do think very dark skin tones will be able to bring out a clearer peach coloring when using it, but it's not going to go ashy on anyone. The color is that well balanced. If you are fair, but not all the way in the coolest end of the spectrum or if you are medium toned, NC or NW, you are going to keel over when you try it - that's how good it is. I was pretty shocked and so was my buddy, who pushed me to try it, even though I'd spent all this time fiddling with Perfect Topping. Honestly, you could use PT as a highlight over a full face of SR 2.0 and achieve an incredible sculpted look without resorting to any sort of overt contouring. You'd be getting the look, just by allowing the extra peach of SR to smooth the parts of the face that benefit from a peachy counterpoint and PT for the parts of the face that could use an extra lift from the lavender hints.
Now for the lavender issues of PT. You will be able to find a PT that will give you more lavender, but this isn't necessarily ideal, unless perhaps you are very pale but also very sallow. Again, the texture is phenomenal and can easily be used full-face, rather than just as a highlighter, but if you are using one with emphasis on the lavender, you will run into giving yourself a somewhat ghostly effect, that walks a really fine line between ghostly, illuminating and ashy. It won't look ashy because it's got too much white, at least, but it will get a bit that way from how cool the lavender is. I'd say for most skin tones, you would be better off with a PT that goes a bit lighter on the lavender or keeps the lavender on one side of the pan so you can grab from it judiciously. Grabbing all lavender was not exactly the best look, even for me at NC15, and I'm at my palest and most neutral toned right now. It looked nice, but then when I tried SR on one side of my face, all over, compared to PT all over on the other side, you could see the difference in naturalness and healthy effect. The rest of PT is more of a nude/blush/peach than straight up pink. It's like one of those very soft, pale antique lingerie sort of pale peaches with just a hint of pink. If you want a full-on PINK highlight, with plenty of highlight and plenty of pink, you need Azalea in the Afternoon MB. OH MY THAT ONE IS BEYOND BEAUTIFUL if you're looking for the palest, prettiest, girliest pink with plenty of sheen. I will talk about it more in a bit. Meanwhile, PT is for full-face perfecting and illuminating and is just crazy lovely and radiant. It is sheer, it's not to be used as a blush for anyone, and it might be a little bleh on darker skin tones if you have one with lots of lavender. It will need a little care even on pale skin if you have a lot of lavender, too. Even still, it's very easy to use and hard to mess up, because of the wonderful texture. It's MUCH lest frosty than the beauty powders from Archie's Girls and I would say it's even a little less glowy than Elude. It's certainly less white-based than either the beauty powders or Elude or even Centre of Attention or even Forever Marilyn. It's less of a matte effect than FM, but it's also got less white and less color density than FM, so it's a softer, more natural look than FM, better for daytime, but totally doable for night.
All in all, LIBA says "forget about the naming fiasco and test these MSFs on their own strengths". If this is where MSFs are going for 2014, we are in for a HELL of a show, because PT and SR 2.0 are excellent, subtle, perfect for minimizing pores and adding the most natural, barely there glow, and good for these purposes for a very wide range of skin tones. Just don't expect old school MSFs you use as a blush or as obvious color, shimmer, frost and glitz. You won't get that here. You WILL get a very sophisticated face veil of the highest order and I would say either or both of them are well worth the money, even if you have a ton of other MAC skin finishes and beauty powders. Either of these will easily blow my Fairly Precious out of the water, for full face use, so what does that say? It says LOVE.
Kristin Bacon
Well-known member
I really appreciate the effort u jus went to writing this! thanku. I was thinking how when Hourglass ambient lighting first came out how everyone was saying it was better than mac msf cuz it does what your saying these did for you. well im all for trying it!! Change can be scarey but it can also be good. I have a bunch of chunky glitter ones already so these sound like what im looking for. As far as looking pretty in the pan, well mineral eyeshadows do but sometimes they suck. i want it pretty on my face!! im going thur morning and planning on both MSF and both MB and the fluidlines. i ordered DD, FDC, and RL already but want HH and SD also. I love spring summer collections most and wait all year for them. i also wear them year round too. Im glad to hear someone liking them and i never owned PT or SR before so i wont mourn something i never had. Yay for less pores showingOK, I spent hours playing with the collection today, trying everything every which way. I'd been feeling like this was going to be a "been there, done that" collection that I could easily use my older springtime lippies and blushes and get the same effect with.
Well, I was wrong. This is a heck of a spring collection. I'd say this is the nicest major spring collection since Spring Color Forecast, although it feels a little less like a big, wide-ranging collection like that one, and more like a very tightly edited collection where all the colors are in service of a very particular look, like Quite Cute or Liberty of London. Mac really hit the colors and formulas out of the park on this one, bringing really rich, glowing pastels that are actually super wearable, without any fuss or muss. Perfect levels of pigmentation, great range of application options where you can go sheerer or more opaque, blot down for a stain, and get anything from the barest hint of foolproof face color to a shining, crystal frost of the smoothest, most etherial proportions. I can't usually pull off a total pastel face look, because I am no spring chicken by any means, but this collection lets me get that look with zero extra effort and with a very soft effect that is extremely youth-giving and yet super high fashion, too. I was really impressed beyond my expectations and am buying a lot more than I was expecting. I don't even care that I may have some similar colors. Believe me, even when I can dupe the color pretty closely, I can't dupe the fairy and butterfly lightness of the textures. I'd be good to put some of my old favorites to rest in lieu of these new ones.
First off, I better deal with the MSFs. I didn't own the original PF, but I do have the 1st repromote of Stereo Rose from In the Groove. I got to look through a whole box of Perfect Toppings and some had a pretty decent amount of lavender, but these are not the old veins of the past, with those heavy metallic lavender thick ropey veins. Same thing goes for SR. This is definitely a trade off, but in my opinion, it's worth it, because these 2 MSFs are beyond perfect and glorious on their own, whether they live up to their old namesakes or not.
My old SR is very veined, but it is NOT smooth like the new one. The old one is a frost and glitter festival, with a strong, but somewhat uneven color. You have to buff it in, which then magnifies the pores and also cuts the wear time down. The new SR has lost the veins for the most part - although I wasn't able to go through a box of those to see the vein variety today, the one we used as the sample wasn't heavily marbleized. Instead it was mostly one SMOOOOOOOOOTH color, a very soft lingerie peach, like perfect silk stockings. It goes on so beautifully. I'd already tried a full face of PT ( more on that in a bit), but SR, which I wasn't originally going to even bother with, went on over my whole face like the most radiant veil of pure youth. I have no problem saying it's the equal of Elude, but for a greater range of skin tones, since there's no white in the mix. It won't give a lot of color unless you are hell bent for leather to turn it into a blush with lots of Fix+ etc. It's a skin perfector of the highest order, though, one of the nicest finishing powders I have ever seen from MAC. It's not frosty at all, and there is zero glitter. There isn't any gold or pink craziness, like old SR, but instead you have a color that is less frosty than the beauty powder from last year's Archie's Girls and Baking Beauties, and less sparkling than the newest EDSFs like Fairly Precious. It's so subtle in its effect, it makes Fairly Precious look kind of loud and bold and high-beam in comparison. It's also more subtle in its finish than Centre of Attention, which is seriously the only MSF I've ever backed up, because I can use it full-face without looking frosty or sprinkled with sugar. So basically, I'm saying the new SR surpasses even CoA, on me at NC15 and for many more skin tones. I do think very dark skin tones will be able to bring out a clearer peach coloring when using it, but it's not going to go ashy on anyone. The color is that well balanced. If you are fair, but not all the way in the coolest end of the spectrum or if you are medium toned, NC or NW, you are going to keel over when you try it - that's how good it is. I was pretty shocked and so was my buddy, who pushed me to try it, even though I'd spent all this time fiddling with Perfect Topping. Honestly, you could use PT as a highlight over a full face of SR 2.0 and achieve an incredible sculpted look without resorting to any sort of overt contouring. You'd be getting the look, just by allowing the extra peach of SR to smooth the parts of the face that benefit from a peachy counterpoint and PT for the parts of the face that could use an extra lift from the lavender hints.
Now for the lavender issues of PT. You will be able to find a PT that will give you more lavender, but this isn't necessarily ideal, unless perhaps you are very pale but also very sallow. Again, the texture is phenomenal and can easily be used full-face, rather than just as a highlighter, but if you are using one with emphasis on the lavender, you will run into giving yourself a somewhat ghostly effect, that walks a really fine line between ghostly, illuminating and ashy. It won't look ashy because it's got too much white, at least, but it will get a bit that way from how cool the lavender is. I'd say for most skin tones, you would be better off with a PT that goes a bit lighter on the lavender or keeps the lavender on one side of the pan so you can grab from it judiciously. Grabbing all lavender was not exactly the best look, even for me at NC15, and I'm at my palest and most neutral toned right now. It looked nice, but then when I tried SR on one side of my face, all over, compared to PT all over on the other side, you could see the difference in naturalness and healthy effect. The rest of PT is more of a nude/blush/peach than straight up pink. It's like one of those very soft, pale antique lingerie sort of pale peaches with just a hint of pink. If you want a full-on PINK highlight, with plenty of highlight and plenty of pink, you need Azalea in the Afternoon MB. OH MY THAT ONE IS BEYOND BEAUTIFUL if you're looking for the palest, prettiest, girliest pink with plenty of sheen. I will talk about it more in a bit. Meanwhile, PT is for full-face perfecting and illuminating and is just crazy lovely and radiant. It is sheer, it's not to be used as a blush for anyone, and it might be a little bleh on darker skin tones if you have one with lots of lavender. It will need a little care even on pale skin if you have a lot of lavender, too. Even still, it's very easy to use and hard to mess up, because of the wonderful texture. It's MUCH lest frosty than the beauty powders from Archie's Girls and I would say it's even a little less glowy than Elude. It's certainly less white-based than either the beauty powders or Elude or even Centre of Attention or even Forever Marilyn. It's less of a matte effect than FM, but it's also got less white and less color density than FM, so it's a softer, more natural look than FM, better for daytime, but totally doable for night.
All in all, LIBA says "forget about the naming fiasco and test these MSFs on their own strengths". If this is where MSFs are going for 2014, we are in for a HELL of a show, because PT and SR 2.0 are excellent, subtle, perfect for minimizing pores and adding the most natural, barely there glow, and good for these purposes for a very wide range of skin tones. Just don't expect old school MSFs you use as a blush or as obvious color, shimmer, frost and glitz. You won't get that here. You WILL get a very sophisticated face veil of the highest order and I would say either or both of them are well worth the money, even if you have a ton of other MAC skin finishes and beauty powders. Either of these will easily blow my Fairly Precious out of the water, for full face use, so what does that say? It says LOVE.
ForeverJenn
Well-known member
Thank you for your wonderful Input! I'm right along with you regarding the new msf's! I love them and think they're gorgeous. It saddens me that people care more about the hype behind the name , rather than give them a chance.OK, I spent hours playing with the collection today, trying everything every which way. I'd been feeling like this was going to be a "been there, done that" collection that I could easily use my older springtime lippies and blushes and get the same effect with. Well, I was wrong. This is a heck of a spring collection. I'd say this is the nicest major spring collection since Spring Color Forecast, although it feels a little less like a big, wide-ranging collection like that one, and more like a very tightly edited collection where all the colors are in service of a very particular look, like Quite Cute or Liberty of London. Mac really hit the colors and formulas out of the park on this one, bringing really rich, glowing pastels that are actually super wearable, without any fuss or muss. Perfect levels of pigmentation, great range of application options where you can go sheerer or more opaque, blot down for a stain, and get anything from the barest hint of foolproof face color to a shining, crystal frost of the smoothest, most etherial proportions. I can't usually pull off a total pastel face look, because I am no spring chicken by any means, but this collection lets me get that look with zero extra effort and with a very soft effect that is extremely youth-giving and yet super high fashion, too. I was really impressed beyond my expectations and am buying a lot more than I was expecting. I don't even care that I may have some similar colors. Believe me, even when I can dupe the color pretty closely, I can't dupe the fairy and butterfly lightness of the textures. I'd be good to put some of my old favorites to rest in lieu of these new ones. First off, I better deal with the MSFs. I didn't own the original PF, but I do have the 1st repromote of Stereo Rose from In the Groove. I got to look through a whole box of Perfect Toppings and some had a pretty decent amount of lavender, but these are not the old veins of the past, with those heavy metallic lavender thick ropey veins. Same thing goes for SR. This is definitely a trade off, but in my opinion, it's worth it, because these 2 MSFs are beyond perfect and glorious on their own, whether they live up to their old namesakes or not. My old SR is very veined, but it is NOT smooth like the new one. The old one is a frost and glitter festival, with a strong, but somewhat uneven color. You have to buff it in, which then magnifies the pores and also cuts the wear time down. The new SR has lost the veins for the most part - although I wasn't able to go through a box of those to see the vein variety today, the one we used as the sample wasn't heavily marbleized. Instead it was mostly one SMOOOOOOOOOTH color, a very soft lingerie peach, like perfect silk stockings. It goes on so beautifully. I'd already tried a full face of PT ( more on that in a bit), but SR, which I wasn't originally going to even bother with, went on over my whole face like the most radiant veil of pure youth. I have no problem saying it's the equal of Elude, but for a greater range of skin tones, since there's no white in the mix. It won't give a lot of color unless you are hell bent for leather to turn it into a blush with lots of Fix+ etc. It's a skin perfector of the highest order, though, one of the nicest finishing powders I have ever seen from MAC. It's not frosty at all, and there is zero glitter. There isn't any gold or pink craziness, like old SR, but instead you have a color that is less frosty than the beauty powder from last year's Archie's Girls and Baking Beauties, and less sparkling than the newest EDSFs like Fairly Precious. It's so subtle in its effect, it makes Fairly Precious look kind of loud and bold and high-beam in comparison. It's also more subtle in its finish than Centre of Attention, which is seriously the only MSF I've ever backed up, because I can use it full-face without looking frosty or sprinkled with sugar. So basically, I'm saying the new SR surpasses even CoA, on me at NC15 and for many more skin tones. I do think very dark skin tones will be able to bring out a clearer peach coloring when using it, but it's not going to go ashy on anyone. The color is that well balanced. If you are fair, but not all the way in the coolest end of the spectrum or if you are medium toned, NC or NW, you are going to keel over when you try it - that's how good it is. I was pretty shocked and so was my buddy, who pushed me to try it, even though I'd spent all this time fiddling with Perfect Topping. Honestly, you could use PT as a highlight over a full face of SR 2.0 and achieve an incredible sculpted look without resorting to any sort of overt contouring. You'd be getting the look, just by allowing the extra peach of SR to smooth the parts of the face that benefit from a peachy counterpoint and PT for the parts of the face that could use an extra lift from the lavender hints. Now for the lavender issues of PT. You will be able to find a PT that will give you more lavender, but this isn't necessarily ideal, unless perhaps you are very pale but also very sallow. Again, the texture is phenomenal and can easily be used full-face, rather than just as a highlighter, but if you are using one with emphasis on the lavender, you will run into giving yourself a somewhat ghostly effect, that walks a really fine line between ghostly, illuminating and ashy. It won't look ashy because it's got too much white, at least, but it will get a bit that way from how cool the lavender is. I'd say for most skin tones, you would be better off with a PT that goes a bit lighter on the lavender or keeps the lavender on one side of the pan so you can grab from it judiciously. Grabbing all lavender was not exactly the best look, even for me at NC15, and I'm at my palest and most neutral toned right now. It looked nice, but then when I tried SR on one side of my face, all over, compared to PT all over on the other side, you could see the difference in naturalness and healthy effect. The rest of PT is more of a nude/blush/peach than straight up pink. It's like one of those very soft, pale antique lingerie sort of pale peaches with just a hint of pink. If you want a full-on PINK highlight, with plenty of highlight and plenty of pink, you need Azalea in the Afternoon MB. OH MY THAT ONE IS BEYOND BEAUTIFUL if you're looking for the palest, prettiest, girliest pink with plenty of sheen. I will talk about it more in a bit. Meanwhile, PT is for full-face perfecting and illuminating and is just crazy lovely and radiant. It is sheer, it's not to be used as a blush for anyone, and it might be a little bleh on darker skin tones if you have one with lots of lavender. It will need a little care even on pale skin if you have a lot of lavender, too. Even still, it's very easy to use and hard to mess up, because of the wonderful texture. It's MUCH lest frosty than the beauty powders from Archie's Girls and I would say it's even a little less glowy than Elude. It's certainly less white-based than either the beauty powders or Elude or even Centre of Attention or even Forever Marilyn. It's less of a matte effect than FM, but it's also got less white and less color density than FM, so it's a softer, more natural look than FM, better for daytime, but totally doable for night. All in all, LIBA says "forget about the naming fiasco and test these MSFs on their own strengths". If this is where MSFs are going for 2014, we are in for a HELL of a show, because PT and SR 2.0 are excellent, subtle, perfect for minimizing pores and adding the most natural, barely there glow, and good for these purposes for a very wide range of skin tones. Just don't expect old school MSFs you use as a blush or as obvious color, shimmer, frost and glitz. You won't get that here. You WILL get a very sophisticated face veil of the highest order and I would say either or both of them are well worth the money, even if you have a ton of other MAC skin finishes and beauty powders. Either of these will easily blow my Fairly Precious out of the water, for full face use, so what does that say? It says LOVE.
