MAC Naked Honey: Initial Thoughts, Swatches and Review

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Naked Honey is one of the usual mid-year, summer offerings of MAC that focuses on summer and all the good things that come with it. Naked Honey is all about highlighters, hand creams, body washes and moisturizers that celebrate nature's gift from a most unlikely source: honey. It is well-known for being a humectant (captures moisture in the air and binds it to the skin) and a healer, both externally and internally. MAC takes advantage of the benefits of honey by creating body products based on this natural substance.

I am very interested in the Naked Honey Hand and Body Cream, described as "a sensuous cream made from bio-converted honey, shea butter, and vitamins C and E derivatives." I am a huge fan of shea butter, so I really would like to try this out and see how the combination of shea butter and honey can help heal my dry skin. More than the hand and body cream, though, I am interested in the Skin Salve- "formulated from honey, beeswax, sunflower oil and other natural ingredients, this rich honey-scented and flavoured salve instantly moisturizes and helps recondition dry skin. Multi-purpose. Use everywhere." I am glad to know that MAC is slowly getting into the natural bandwagon, especially in these environmentally conscious times.

Right now, though, I will be focusing on a few items from Naked Honey that I've tried: the Golden Nectar highlighting powder, Creme de Miel eyeshadow and Buzz lipgloss.

See swatches below the cut....




Golden Nectar is a muted gold tan highlighter with gold shimmer. It has an embossed honeycomb pattern that is jet-milled and has superfine, pearlized particles that create soft highlights on cheek, brow, shoulders, or anywhere on the body. The operative word in the description is "muted". The glow is not at all like the mineralized skinfinishes. It has noticeably low sheen that is neither frosty nor metallic. In short, the glow is subtle but quite noticeable. People who prefer subtle highlights would love this product because it doesn't give an in-your-face shimmer - just a nice, soft sheen that doesn't look fake or greasy.

Creme de Miel is a gorgeous highlighter because I love yellow-white shades. Creme de Miel is a frosty light yellow gold that is very similar to Ricepaper. When you put these two side by side, Creme de Miel looks a tad darker, but swatched on the skin, the latter is lighter with more white undertones than Ricepaper. Since Ricepaper is a staple highlighter for me, Creme de Miel is a must in my book.

Buzz is a dark copper brown with multi-dimensional pearl. This is a unique color for me as I don't have copper bronze lipglasses. It has definite red undertones and would go well with my golds, bronzes, yellows and browns. I love how it lights up the face as well.

I can't give a full review until I check out the other items from this collection. Suffice it to say that as of now, I believe the highlight powders will be the winners in this collection, followed by Creme de Miel eyeshadow and the body products. The fragrances look promising as well. Watch out for Part II of this review.