Mac Stroke of Midnight Holiday 2013 collection-my picks

MAC's second Holiday collection for 2013 is Stroke of Midnight featuring limited edition face palettes, eye kits and lip bags.  Here are the two items I picked up from the collection.

All the items have limited edition packaging which personally I think is stunning.  It's a 20's, almost art deco black, gold and white.  I love it when MAC collections have limited edition packaging-it just makes them that bit more special.

With my recent obsession for anything nude it will come as no surprise I picked up the Nude Lip Bag.  The Lip Bag sets feature a full size lipstick and cremesheen lip glass and a miniature lip pencil.  The Nude Lip bag contains Creme D'Nude cremesheen lipstick and Boldly Bare lip pencil which are both part of the permanent range (albeit the permanent range items don't have this beautiful packaging) and a limited edition Cremesheen Glass in Softly Lit.

Creme D'Nude is a milky peach nude, perfect with a smoky eye as it really neutralises pink from the lips.  It's mostly opaque with a sheen rather than a glossy finish.  Very easy to apply from the bullet with no tugging.  A good nude for pale skintones like mine.

Softly lit is a beautiful sheer peach toned gloss, the sparkle you see in the tube is very very subtle on the lips.  It's non sticky and perfect for every day wear.
 

Boldly Bare is described by MAC as 'dirty red brown'.  On it's own it's a pinky nude-surprisingly not drying on the lips considering its a lip pencil.  A really good neutral day colour. With Softly Lit applied over the top it becomes a super glossy souped up version of the pencil colour.  A great transition from a day to night lip.

Creme D'Nude (left) Softly Lit (right)

Boldly Bare (left) and Boldly Bare with Softly Lit over (right)

Stroke of Midnight eyes is a palette of 5 mini shadows-I chose the 'cool' palette which has 4 limited edition shades and one permanent line shade in 'Shadowy Lady'. 

The packaging is the same as the 'fabulousness' eye palettes from the Holiday 2012 collection-the palette is ok but the fastening on the front is quite flimsy and mine broke off on my Fabulousness palette from last year.

The first three shades are the winners for me-they are exactly the tone's I usually go for.  Fair play gives a light pink wash of shimmer-very pretty and easy to wear.   Deception is a gold tinged brown.  It does contain micro-glitter but I didn't really have any fall out when I applied it and the effect is quite subtle on the eye.  In fact the combination of the three shades overall gives a subtle wearable daytime smoky eye.  Romance Me is a grey toned brown, again with subtle gold shimmer and a hint of plum, one of my favourite type's of shade on my green eyes.  All 3 were easy to blend-Deception and Romance Me giving the best colour pay-off.

Frisco and Shadowy Lady are harder for me to wear.  Frisco swatches as an almost salmon pink on me although the texture is smooth and velvety.  Both shades are matte.  I'll need to try it on my eye to see if I can pull it off but this is the colour I suspect I will use the least.

Shadowy Lady is a deep matte purple.  I used it to line under my eyes.

I am much happier with these items than I am with the items I picked up from the Divine Night collection-Stroke of Midnight is a fairly safe collection with sublime packaging.

Are you planning to pick anything up from the MAC Holiday collections this year?

Mac Divine Nights for Holiday 2013-my picks

What happens at night stays there. M•A•C captures the moment when flashing lights illuminate a flair for finery and limitless luxury that can only be described as divine. Gorgeous colours in rich finishes inspire an evening on the scene and to be seen. Enjoy yourself - past midnight, the darkness keeps the secrets.

MAC has released two collections for the Holiday Season-Divine Night and Stroke of Midnight.

Both are available in the US now (I purchased mine from Nordstrom) and will be released in the UK on November 1st.

Sadly for me, most of the things I have picked up I am not a fan of-this is the peril of online shopping I guess and not doing your research before going crazy with the 'click to buy' button or having the ability to see the items in store before buying.

I love the idea of MAC Mineralize Skinfinishes-they always look so pretty and I get suckered in on their looks alone.  I know they generally have a frost finish which isn't the most flattering but I thought the pink tones of Scene to be Seen would work well as a blush and that Centre of Attention would be a lovely highlight.  

Scene to be Seen contains an outer section named as 'mauve with pink sheen' and a smaller inner section named 'brick rose with gold reflects'.  They can be worn separately or swirled together.

Unfortunately, on me the metallic sheen is just too much and emphasises small pores on my cheeks.  The colour is easily buildable but even with the lightest touch the metallic finish was very prominent.   This MSF reminds me a lot of Estee Lauder Tease blush so if you lusted over and missed that limited edition this might be a good substitute.

Centre of Attention has an outer section named 'pastel peachy pink with fine pink shimmer' and the small inner section is named '24ct gold shimmer'.  I had initially thought the outer shade would be a cool champagne colour, maybe even similar to Lightscapade which is my favour MAC MSF of all time but it actually runs much peachier and pinker than that and for me, too glittery as a highlight.  The gold colour is very gritty in texture and together the colours are just unusable on my skintone.

The eyeshadows fair a little better with Until Dawn being the best of the bunch.

Mineralize eyeshadows tend to be quite powdery, lacking in pigment, glittery and have a bit of fall out-and yet again I still purchased two more!

Exquisite Ego contains an outer disk of a coppery bronze with a metallic finish and an inner core of a peachy champagne colour.

When applied, both shades have a bit of fallout which is difficult to remove but they both blend well.  I like the shimmer finish on my eyes but you do need a fair few layers of the lighter colour to get decent colour payoff.

Until Dawn is definitely the highlight for me in this collection but again it's by no means mindblowingly good.  The larger section of colour is a gold toned beige with silver shimmer running through it-again you need to pack the shadow on for the best effect.  The smaller section is a beautiful taupe-a complex colour with purple, grey and caramel tones under different lights.  Very easy to blend through the socket even though they are not the smoothest and pigmented forumla.  Much less fallout across this compact but with the same frost finish.

The final thing I picked up was the Flair for Finery lustre lipstick.  Again it's another 'miss' for me because the colour is far too milky for my skintone and will make me look like the living dead!!  I was hoping it was going to be pinker than it is having seen it described as a cool pink nude but it would wash me out if I were to use it.  The packaging is really nice though-a twist on the norm being gold and black instead of black and silver.  I always think it's nice for limited edition collections to have some kind of twist on them to make them stand out.

There are some great swatches of the entire collection here on Make Up And Beauty Blog if you would like to see the full range.

Sadly for me, this has been in lesson about impulse buying and it's perils-this collection overall is a miss for me, Until Dawn being the only item I don't regret buying.

Have you seen the Mac Holiday collection?  Will you be splurging on anything?