Tell me about old-school M.A.C. ..!

[ci.italy]

Hi, hoping this thread isn't existing yet, I was pretty curious about how M.A.C. Cosmetics was before Estee Lauder acquired it in 1996.
I was wasting some minutes on Facebook looking at groups with Mac Lovers, when suddenly I saw a group against MAC! Oh my gosh, how could be possible that somebody would hate this?!?! Let me click in..and one of the discussion was about old-school MAC company, so this intrigued me, because a girl was saying that quality of their products is not the same, and she wrote a few things she remembered like the old packaging and so on.
I'd like to hear from you, if you love this company from a very long time (not like me, I'm a "pretty fresh" addicted since 2007) what do you remember? Do you also have photos about this?
(ps: sorry for my english )

 

[Little Addict]

um ... some of the perm colors are still the same (I'm not sure of the entire perm collection which is why I say 'some'), and the lipstick weren't in their bullet packaging. Just plain cylinder packaging.

I'm pretty new to mac but i've inherited some old stuff from my mom. idk if it was limited edition or not but I have colors such as diesel and black gold that aren't in the perm line anymore.

 

[MzzRach]

I've been using MAC since the early days and do not see a downgrade in quality. If anything, the line has improved.

 

[nebbish]

I'm a pretty new addict, also, but I've *known* about MAC for a long time ... I'd think the quality would've gotten better going from an independent company to being owned by a cosmetics giant like Estee Lauder. Also, Estee Lauder is very well-known, and I can't see them allowing a poor-quality company to represent them.

 

[miss_bailey]

The eyeshadows used to come in twist tops not the flip tops they have now.

 

[katsey]

I could be wrong but I think that there were a lot less LE items before it was bought by Estee Lauder. That and it was a Canadian brand.

 

[Ernie]

I've been using MAC since 1989 and they only had 2 collections a year. Also many of the products didn't list finishes, such as frost etc... Screw top caps, large sized shadows/blushes there was no specification. First freestanding store was the MAC on Christopher st. in the village.(around 1991, I never realized how lucky I was to work across the street from them!) Some of the packaging even had dates on them. The lipsticks tubes look different then the ones we now have and the black packaging was not matte, it was a bit shiny.
That's about all I can remember. Some of the original colors are still with us.

 

[chocolategoddes]

The most common thing I've heard is that in the beginning, MAC was a line "for the professional makeup artist" and now it's marketed towards consumers and has become much more mainstream (obviously).

 

[Ernie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MzzRach I've been using MAC since the early days and do not see a downgrade in quality. If anything, the line has improved.

True, and I love your new avatar, you look great!

 

[ductapemyheartt]

I just know that Ruby Woo was one of the first lipsticks created by MAC.

 

[MAC_Whore]

There was a spell when the lipsticks and lip liners were in silver packaging.

There were screw top shadow and blush containers. Most of us have seen the old school MAC screw tops with "MAC" embossed on the side, but there was actually another design before that that had the logo and and some lines printed on the top of the lid.

Not many companies were doing lip gloss when lip glass came out. At the time, MAC was known for their amazing lipsticks and they had to convince customers to cross over to lip gloss. Can you guys imagine that?

They had large eye shadow containers for select colours. They were the size of a blush container.

They used to have coordinating nail polishes for the lipsticks. I wore Dubonnet lipstick and nail polish for ages.

Yeah, the LEs were super-rare! They hardly ever did LEs.

They used to have hair care products.

Originally, the brushes weren't numbered like they are now. For example, now if it starts with a 1, it is for the face; starts with a 2 it is for the eyes and if it starts with a 3 it is for the lips. They didn't use to do that and some of the original brushes only had 2 digits.

As far as the people that are "against MAC", there is a group of artists that don't care for MAC's labour/business practices. Their reasoning is that MAC is cutting them out of jobs/pay. As a result, they call for artists to boycott MAC. That's fine for them, that's their choice. I agree one should stand by their principles. The only time I have a problem with the boycott is when artists say that they don't use MAC because of the labour boycott and none of MAC's products are good enough. Really? Not one? BS. Enough about that though. That's another thread that already exists on Specktra.