Wednesday 11 May 2011

MAC - Surf, Baby! - Crushed Metallic Pigment Stacks





So far, I've only picked up the Crushed Metallic Pigment stacks from the Surf, Baby! collection. I'm planning on having a look at the other goodies at a counter soon.

Two stacks with this collection - Summer Stash, which is warmer tones, & Surf The Ocean, cooler shades but with a bronze shade thrown in.

As far as texture goes, these lie somewhere between the chunkier standard MAC pigments, such as Steel Blue & Rose, & the Solar Bits. Thankfully, they're easier to work with than the Solar Bits.

Packaging-wise, they come as two stacks with two pots on each in the box but you can remove the lid to stack four pots together, making them easier to store.


Summer Stash

In the Summer Stash stack, the four shades are Peachy, Pearl, Pink & Old Wine.


Pearl

Described as a light white pearl on MAC's site. Vivid white with a slight champagne tinge to it. The colour itself would make for a good highlight shade, but as it's so frosty & metallic, it would be very stark.






Peachy

Looks quite beige-toned in the pot but applies as a soft peachy champagne shade. Very metallic & frosty but still a good neutral shade.







Pink

Despite its name, pink is actually a violet-pink shade with silver shimmer. In the pot, it looks distinctly more violet-toned than it does once applied, where the pink tones come through more.






Old Wine

Labelled as a brown bronze with gold pearl, Old Wine is less red-toned than its fellow pigment Chocolate Brown. The base shade is on the neutral side but the golden shimmer warms it up a little.







Pink, Old Wine, Pearl, Peachy
The swatches were applied dry & straight on to bare skin. It took just one or two swipes of product to get them to show this vividly, so they do have great pigmentation.

Old Wine,  Chocolate Brown, Coco Beach

For comparison's sake, Old Wine was swatched with a couple of other brown-toned pigments, Chocolate Brown & Coco Beach. Old Wine has less red tones & is darker than both of these shades. As the picture shows, Old Wine's texture is a little more clumpy than the other pigments.

Pink, Accent Red, Pinked Mauve
Pink was a tough one to choose comparisons for. Purple shades seemed wrong, the closest I could get was Pinked Mauve. Even then, it's not a dead-on match. Accent Red was mostly thrown in for good measure.



Surf The Ocean

The four shades that make up the Surf The Ocean stack are Titanium, Aquamarine, Bronze & Graphite.



Titanium

Very metallic, bright silver shade. It looks very grey-silver in the pot but less so once on skin. 







Aquamarine

Stunning metallic yellowed green. It applied as a white with green duochrome would, but the green is amplified.







Bronze

I'm not entirely sure what's going on texture-wise with Bronze. It's clumped into these giant balls & has an almost sticky feel to it. It's the only one that looks like this.
A bright bronze that's more golden toned than the name would lead you to think.




Graphite

The name, to my mind, is somewhat of a misnomer. I think Graphite & a deep blackened grey comes to mind. Whilst it is a blackened shade, it's more akin to Forest Green or Deep Blue Green pigment but with a golden shimmer than sparkles in certain lighting.






Titanium, Aquamarine, Bronze, Graphite

As with the Summer Stash swatch, these were done straight on to bare skin with the pigments used dry.


Titanium, Sugarpill Tiara, Silver Fog, Silver Metal pigment

For these swatches, I should have used a damp brush with Tiara but I forgot. Titanium is darker than either Silver Fog or the Silver Metal pigment. It's probably closer to the Platinum metal pigment but I forgot to add that one in with these swatches.


Graphite, Forest Green, Deep Blue Green

Graphite looks much closer to Deep Blue Green, as it also has a slight blue tinge to it. What makes it different are the tiny golden shimmers, which, unfortunately, don't show up on this picture.


As far as these go, they're nice to have but I wouldn't say they're absolutely essential unless you don't own any similar colours or you're a collector. Of the two colour sets, Surf The Ocean appeals more to me because I tend to prefer cooler colours and I particularly like Aquamarine & Graphite. From the Summer Stash stack, Pink is a pretty colour but, again, not essential.
These won't hold much appeal for those who prefer more muted colours and less shimmery textures.















1 comment:

  1. I actually really like these sets :) they show up very pretty......my only thought is how much these particular sets are ^.^ considering if I can get something thats just as good for cheaper I would go for that over them ^.^

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