Your MAC Collection Development

[gitts]

Hey Guys

I got a rather long question for you. I know there is a thread asking what your first MAC purchase was and there is a traincase and storage section but my question is not only what did you start with in MAC but where are you now and how long did it take for you to get here and where do you see yourself in five years? Wow, that is a mouthful.

For me, I started with MAC Icon lipstick and Chestnut lipliner in 1996 or 7 cannot remember exactly but I do know I was still in university. My collection only really started developing when I got my makeup done for a wedding about three years ago. I moved from two MAC products to about 200 over the three year period. There are a few more things that I would love to get and MAC continues to bring ot fresh and exciting releases. I think I will have to stop myself around 300 or 350 products. After all how the hell and I going to get through it all, I am not an artist but I do enjoy looking at them as well as playing in them.

What about you guys? Tell me, I would love to hear.

 

[SheLuvsMAC]

Good question, Gitts. What were those first two MAC products for you?

I dabbled with MAC at least three times prior to becoming a convert. My first purchase was Studio Fix Fluid, which I used up, and I somehow had Studio Fix, Studio Stick and Raizin blush (from who knows when) lying around already when I stopped by a MAC counter late last year. The nicest guy hooked me up with everything I needed and showed me how to apply it. That was my first big MAC haul and I've been wearing MAC just about daily since.

I still buy from other brands but reach for my MAC products first, especially when I'm in a hurry.

At the moment I have about 60+ items, not including the fragrance and skin care.

Over the next fix years I expect to have expanded my blush and e/s palettes and to have the best from the launches. If I limit myself in any way it'll be because too many choices confound me!

 

[blindpassion]

I started in the fall of 2006. Swish eyeshadow was my first purchase. From there, I slowly bought products, a few at a time. Summer 2007 I purchased my first mac blushes, lipstick, foundation, and more. And here we are, two years later. I now own over 110 MAC eyeshadows and 10 blushes. I have 11 pro pan palettes. I have many mineralized blushes, msfs, and pigments. I also own over 75 brushes, over half being MAC brushes. I estimate my collection worth over 5,000. I now freelance and put my skills and MAC products to great use. I used to house my products in a traincase but I soon outgrew it, I moved onto those containers with plastic drawers, and soon outgrew that. I now have a tall drawers on wheels type of container with 10 drawers, and a large travel case for freelancing jobs. In five years, I see myself owning more MAC, of course. But I don't buy as much as I used to - I own a lot now. I see myself buying a piece of so from every new LE collection, and expanding my business

 

[Mabelle]

I started with MAC in ... 2002 i believe. Or begining 2003. I was getting into makeup with the Help of my Aunt (who worked with/for Glo Minerals and gave me freebies!). I worked in a mall that had a MAC counter. It wasn;t a great work environment. I was always stressed, and it went form bad to worse. During my breaks i would often opt for some retail therpay in the form of MAC.
I started with eye shadows alone. My first was sketch. my second was romp. then soba? No brushes. No foundation. No liner. No bases. lol. By the time i had gone to backpack in europe i had a little kit I was schelping around.
6years later I have an Overflowing traincase. 5 full eyeshadow palettes, 2 blush palettes etc...
I've just started building up my brush ollection. I have allthe mini SE brushes but am now going for fullsized ones. Ive also recently discovered MSF. yummy.
In the next five years i see myself finally getting a vanity to house my collection! lol. And buying a considerable aount more MAC. I don't work at the mall anymore, so i don't buy as much. I scope out the upcomming collections and try to restrain myself with the impluse purchases. But i'd be a damned liar if i said that my collection would only slightly grow.

 

[mtrimier]

My first experience with MAC was through my mother, who had the crazy idea to give a 10 year old "Grid" lipstick. This was back in '88/'89 and when she lived in NYC and MAC was still a young company.

It was this frosty dark purple, a nice color, but not for me, at 10.

I kept it and would take it out later and try it then wipe it off. I eventually tossed it. I went back to the MAC counter at Lenox Square for an Oak lip pencil when I was in HS(like '94/'95), I was enjoying just a nude liner and clear gloss at the time.

During undergrad, I didn't do much with MAC. I added a pencil here and there and a lipglass, well glasses. I had about 10 or so lipglasses then just stopped, due to a boyfriend's comments and jelousy issues. I ended up tossing them all (wish I had paid attention to B2M!), and starting over probably when I was 25 or so. What rebooted my MAC system was StudioTech. I needed a foundation for some photos I had to take and dropped by a counter and got matched perfectly by a lovely MA that was my height (hee! yay shorties!).

After that it was all downhill. I conquered my fear of eyeshadow and hit the counters hard.

Right now I have 31 glosses, 13 lipsticks, 6 pencils, 11 pigments, 49 shadows, 3 paints, 6 MSFs, 1 blush (i have freckles so the blush isn't really important to me), a BP, and 11 brushes.

For the future, I think I would like to concentrate more on brushes, LE colors, and pigments. I have a few more basic shadows I would like to get, but am in no hurry, as most are permanent. I have a 6 drawer cabinet that I have reserved for my makeup collection, so steady growth can be accomodated, I just don't see any major growth spurts happening.

I think I am in a sort of MAC "comfort zone", and it has gotten easier to be more objective about my purchases now then before.

 

[romi79_2008]

This March it`s been a year since my first Mac product. Since getting addicted to it I just can`t make myself use another brand so I mostly gave away all the other brands I had. I give up very easily to es, I have 75 i think, recently to blushes 13, a little over 180 pcs in a year I don`t it even want to think about how much they worth-I spent.... but I love every piece of it ( well not mac select- that i hate). I`m a little overwhelmed with the LE but I try to keep it under 70$/month. And if something is similar with what I have I don`t buy it. I think if I`ll manage to buy the brushes i want(8 brushes I still want) and a few es from permanent collection between the le collections this year I won`t spend as much just a item or two a month

 

[kariii]

My first trip ever to a MAC store was inside of a macy's when I finally started working and making okay money.I went in there acquiring about a neutral look. I ended up with studio fix fluid, twinks, layin' low paintpot and blushbaby. I'm assuming this was around when Fafi came out because of the PP. then months after that I went back with my girlfriend for a makeover for a girls night out. I ended up buying nocturnelle, parfait amour and beauty marked. I also love greens so october of last year I went back and got humid e/s and honour blush, stripdown lipliner and myth lipstick and since then It's gone down hell. I'm mostly obsessed with eyeshadow, not a very huge lipglass person, I have more lipsticks than lipglasses mainly because I'm not very impressed with MAC's lipglasses. In 5 years, I see myself with a little bit of here and there with LE items, not much more from the permanent line since I own most of it (Especially eyeshadows/brushes).

 

[xxManBeaterxx]

I was first introduced to MAC when i was around 15, my mom took me there to get my makeup done for my winter ball thing for my high school. The first couple of years after that i wasnt really "into" mac mainly because i had no money to spend. But I was obsessed with pigments since then and i've bought every single limited edition pigment since like 2001, I'm not even sure what made me feel so compelled buy them all the time.

Then as i got older and had a job. I became addicted to the eyeshadows and MSF's.

Then came the lip products and blushes.

Then i had my daughter at a young age and i couldn't buy mac for a long while..

So after i became financially stable, i bought the brushes xD. I was using really cheap and crappy drug store brushes before. And then i got into foundations last, i didnt start wearing foundation until i was like 21

Thats how my collection grew... I think my make up is worth around $6,000 And im not a PRO member :\ I feel rotten now...lol

 

[GlamQueen21]

I was first introduced to MAC when I was in high school and got three eyeshadows in Shadowy Lady, Era and Antiqued. I also had a lipglass (forgot the color of it and it was a deep plum color I think). Then, I got into MAC again last year in July and bought two Heatherette lipglasses in Sock Hop and Style Minx. After that, started buy a little more MAC off of ebay until I started ordering MAC oline back in October and my first online purchase was the Electric Eel eyeshadow and in the store, I bought Shimmermoss e/s, Vanilla e/s and Select Sheer Pressed Powder (my first pressed powder besides the Heatherette Beauty Powders in Alpha Girl and Smooth Harmony). I got so addicted to MAC and couldn't stop buying MAC that it went out of control. I'm somewhere over 100 and counting. I want to make my first foundation purchase (both Studio Fix Fluid and Studio Sculpt), full size brushes and the mineralize blushes (not the ones from Grand Duos) and eyeliner pencils and liquid eyeliners.

 

[coachkitten]

Great Topic!!

My very first MAC purchase was in 1994. I had never heard of MAC until I went to a family reunion. My older cousin (who I thought was sooo cool) pulled out a spice lipliner and a really frosty light tan type color of MAC lipstick. I asked her what she used and once we got back from vacation I had my mom drive me to the local mall to get both of these items. I soon realized that the darker liner with light lipstick wasn't for me.

I never really thought about MAC much after that experience.

In High School I worked for a company called Garden Botanika and we would get people in the store all of the time asking to see our makeup brushes because they were recommended by MAC as a cheaper option (the brushes were made by the same company as the MAC ones). Since MAC was in the same mall as Garden Botanika I started really discovering MAC and soon fell in love with it. That was in 1999 and I have been obsessed with MAC ever since.

I currently have quite a bit of MAC makeup and I don't really need much more.

In five years I hope to stick to just purchasing the things that I "need" or that are "unique". I have more makeup than I know what to do with but I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Okami08]

My first purchase was this past October. I bought Love Nectar lustreglass, and wound up using it as my go-to light lipgloss. I made my second purchase February 28th (just over a month ago!) and it's been a bit of a haul-a-thon this last month. I bought 2 lipglasses on February 28th (bringing my total to 3 lipglosses from MAC), but as of today my MAC collection stands at 1 15-pan palette, 8 eyeshadows, 1 dazzleglass, 1 tube of clear lipglass, 1 3D glass, 7 lipglasses, and 4 lustreglasses.

 

[jmarie7481]

I'm not exactly sure what year I first started with MAC but it wasn't that long ago. It was back with the release of the Smoke Signals collection or whatever it was. I don't even remember...but I went and had my makeup done and bought the quad with grays and Carbon in it and that was it. I actually wasn't thrilled with my makeup at all. But then I went back because I was the Blue Storm stuff sitting there as I went down the escalator at Macy's...it was calling my name. I ended up buying Blue Storm eyeshadow which is still my favorite blue to date *wishes they'd repromote*...made an appointment to get my makeup done by the manager. She did a rainbow eye on me and ever since then I was hooked. She did a fabulous job...I bought every single thing she used on me.

So anyway (I ramble...sorry lol!), I started with a quad...then a single eyeshadow...then like 10 more shadows, some lipglass, foundation, brow pencil...blah blah blah...and that was it. The rest is history in the making...and lots of MAC

 

[LMD84]

i first got into mac in 2004. me and hubby were shopping in nottingham for my brithday and we walked past the mac shop and my hubby saw the rows of bright colours inside and said we should go in. at the time i was after a teal coloured eyeshadow to match a teal corset he had bought me for a night out. i went in a fell in love! so many choices of colours and finishes! i ended up buying teal pigment (perfect for the corset!) and little vi lustre glass (which i still love to this day... i will always re-purchase this!)

i didn't know at the time that mac had a website (stupid right?!) so only got to buy mac when i went to nottingham which was every 4-6 months. i mainly bought pigments, eyeshadows and glosses. it was only one day when i found the website that i realsied they do wicked limited edition collections!! heatherette was out and i was loving the packaging. i googled mac heatherette and then stumbled across specktra where i could read reviews on the products!!

so yeah once i read about all the collections and different types of product my collection started to grow! i went from buying 7-10 items of mac a year to 5 items a month!! so yes my collection has got rather large now and i have a whole variety of products.

 

[sharkbytes]

I've been into makeup my whole life it seems, and even as a pre-teen my mother would take me to the department store for "good makeup" because she didn't want me damaging my skin. I used to wear a lotttt of Lancome, until I discovered MAC. I started off with just a lipglass (Prr...how typical) and Coppering eyeshadow.

Now, the bulk of my collection is MAC, and I'm still adding to it all the time. I haven't yet made 15-pan palettes, which is next on my agenda. I have all the basic blushes I'll ever need, so I can just grab really special ones as they come out. Essentially, I'm at the "I don't NEED it, but I kinda want it" phase.

 

[leenybeeny]

My first MAC purchase was StudioFix when I was in high school. I didn't really get into any of their other products until I hit my 20's. Since then I have grown my collection to probably close to 500 items. I know I Have about 325 eyeshadows, well over 20 pigments, about 75 lipsticks, about 50 various lipgloss (dazzleglass, lipglass etc), 5 different foundations, about 30 blushes, some skin care, about 40 lip and eyeliners, about 30 bases (paints, shadesticks, chromalines), about 25 brushes... hmmm.. maybe I have more than 500

My spending habits have changed a lot in the last year. I am very picky with what I buy now. It has to be very unique for me as I have so many items in my collection that look so similar to one another. Also, I have foundations and concealers for my kit outside of my "colour" items, but I don't count that as part of my stash.

Three years ago, I would have bought every item in Sugarsweet. I ended up with four and one of them was with B2M.

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Well, weirdly enough my first MAC products were the ones I got from my mom (Metal Rock MSF, Shroom e/s) I think this was in 2002. I bought my first MAC products in 2003. I got goldmine, Mythology and Freshwater e/s and a foundation. Those were my only MAC things for a year or so. After that I got Sunbask blush and Prr lipglass in 2005. Then I would go few times a year to replace my foundation and concealer. Only in 2006 I started buying more MAC but it still wasn't to the point of collecting it. I had about 10 e/s, 2 blushes, 3 lipsticks and one fluidline (Delphic, I still have that one and affraid to run out).
In 2007 I started becoming an addict I am now and paying attention to LE things. Now I'm at a point where I'm very selective with my purchases, I bought enough makeup to last me a lifetime in 2007 and 2008 collectively so now I only buy things that are very unique.
Right now from MAC I have 3 full eyeshadow palettes, 14 full size pigments and countless samples, 5 highlighting products, 12 blushes and 40 lip products :/

 

[Susanne]

I started with MAC in May 2006. I was looking for new e/s in a wide range of colour - my first e/s were Aquadisiac and Creme de Violet

I had read about MAC in a women's magazine and had been excited to find out.

I am sad I passed Lure those days

I just bought e/s from the perm line at first.

The first LE collection I was excited about was Technacolour in August 2006

My first big LE haul was Danse in January 2007 here. I fell in love with Barbie in March 2007 here

and have not passed one LE collection since then

I have gotten friends with my MA at the counter, I visit her regulary and buy MAC LE and perm every month since Danse.

I only buy MAC - I have no other makeup anymore. Although I am lurking with some MUFE e/s

I love e/s, l/g and blushes the most - I have a nice collection today. But I just buy colours and shades that I love and really use.

I look forward to more MAC in the next months!

It is a passion for me I love to share with you here!

 

[koukla032487]

I started buying MAC probably around winter of 2007. I already was into make-up at Sephora and Lancome for yearsss but heard about MAC probably a few times in my life...but like a lot of women I thought it was just "sooo expensive." Actually it's not compared to other brands I found out!! lol

But my first MAC purchases was Crystal Avalanche e/s and Woodwinked e/s. Soon came Angel l/s, and my first LE items were Your Ladyship and Sweet Sienna pigments (which are still my fave MAC items today ever!)

I stopped buying MAC spring last year. I decided to stop spending a lot of money on mac make-up for a while for certain reasons

I didn't start buying again until a few months ago (I know I missed out on sooo many collections).

Right now my collection really isn't that big, because I use other brands such as NARS and MUFE too. I have 2 of the Pro shadow pans and 1 Pro blush pan. I also have 2 MSFs which are Perfect Topping and Lightscapade. Not to mention am growing my MAC brush collection!!!

I know within one year everything will probably be doubled what it is now

lol

 

[Ernie]

My girlfriend and I were just talking about this. I started back in 1989, buying Taupe blush, lipstick and eye pencil, and Spice l/p. 2 years later I was working 1 block away from the NYC Christopher st. store. OMG, we were there everyday. I remember buying Moss and Ochre e/s and Sublime, X-Pose, Pink Freeze and Modum lipsticks! At that time they had 2 new collections a year.

 

[miss-lilly]

I started buying MAC as soon as the first store opened in Athens (I think it was in 2001). My first purchases were Swish e/s and Pink Poodle l/g, which I adored.

In 2004 I started extending my MAC collection but my first big LE haul was in January 2007 with the Danse collection. At the same time I discovered Specktra and the rest is history

Since then my collection has grown very much ~ I don't know how many MAC items I own but I guess it's well over 500.
I must admit that I'm not 100% loyal to MAC. I love (and buy products from) other brands as well such as NARS, UD, Bobbi Brown, Chanel etc