MAC Semi-Precious: Mineralize Eye Shadows Initial Swatches and Review

Clockwise from top: Hint of Sapphire, Jade's Fortune, Quartz Fusion x2, Golden Gaze, Clarity, Unsurpassable, Faux Gold, Rare Find







Sorry for the delay in posting this. For the first time in my life, I slept like a log for 14 straight hours last night. That ought to mean something since I only sleep for 6-7 hours on average. Jet lag, working right after my long haul flight and pure exhaustion took their toll on me. I hope to be back on my feet next week to churn out more posts!

For Semi-Precious Mineralize Skin Finish and Blush Initial Swatches and Review, click here!

Here are some initial swatches and reviews of the MAC Semi Precious mineralize eye shadows.

Swatches and review after the jump




Clarity


Unsurpassable




Rare Find


Hint of Sapphire




Faux Gold


One more time, it's hypnotizing!


Jade's Fortune


Quartz Fusion




Golden Gaze




Swatches:


Faux Gold (wet, dry), Unsurpassable (wet, dry)




Unsurpassable (wet, dry)


Hint of Sapphire (wet, dry), Quartz Fusion (wet, dry)








Clarity (wet, dry), Jade's Fortune (wet, dry)






Jade's Fortune (wet, dry)


Top: Rare Find (wet, dry)
Bottom: Golden Gaze (dry, wet)


Golden Gaze (dry, wet)


Rare Find (wet, dry)

My Take:

As usual, the mineralize eye shadows from MAC are lovely to look at. However, I have too many of them in my stash, but I hardly use them. I almost always reach for MAC's regular shadows than these. Plus, they are bulky and take up too much space compared to the smaller regular shadows, so I have them stashed away and forget to use them. However, there are a couple that really piqued my interest in this collection because they look awesome swatched on skin. The rest do not really make a big mark as I've seen some of these shades before.

Also, the mineralize eyeshadows of this particular collection are melanges, meaning they are like swirls of different colors or a collage of shades, so much so that you can't really use just a particular shade in the compact. They are mixed together in such a way that you can't isolate a particular color for your use.

I honestly do not care for a number of these shadows because I have way too many mineral eyeshadows from different mineral makeup companies that can dupe these, or have better texture than these even when applied wet. Which takes me to my next point: almost all of these shadows do not have any color payoff when used dry, except maybe Golden Gaze, Blue Sheen and Smoked Ruby which I don't have yet (but will purchase once they are out in stores). However, when used dry, some of these colors make great transitioning colors or blending colors because they are so sheer. Case in point: I loved Unsurpassable as my blending color for Jealousy Wakes - will be posting a look using these shadows really soon.

My favorites from this bunch would have to be Unsurpassable (a melange of green, teal, purple and copper). When used wet, it morphs into a beautiful metallic lime-moss green. Rare Find is also pretty, a melange of violet, brown and gold which turns into a metallic purplish mauve when wet. I also like Clarity, a melange of white pink, off-white green gold and black, and when applied wet, it turns into a nice metallic sage green.  Probably the superstars of this collection are Golden Gaze, a gorgeous, gorgeous melange of gold and black, Blue Sheen, a melange of navy, black and peach, and Smoked Ruby, a melange of burgundy and black.  These three are those that have good color payoff even when applied dry.  Golden Gaze can be used as an all-over lid color with a multi-dimensional finish to it, because the black gives depth to your crease, like you have applied an altogether different and darker crease color.  I was surprised when I applied Golden Gaze, the black tones made me look like I applied a darker shade on my crease.  Amazing!

The other shades don't pique my interest because as I've said, many of these are dupes of some of my mineral eyeshadows.  I am particularly disappointed in Jade's Fortune because I would have loved to use the lime green in that shadow, but as seen in the swatches, it just looked like a dark shade of blackish blue-green in the swatches.

As for staying power, these are decent.  I would recommend using a tackier base on top of your regular base.  I would also suggest that the tackier base be close to the color of your shadow to make the colors pop (i.e. paint pots over UD primer potion).   I also suggest using a mixing medium (and not just water) to foil these shadows, as they will fade easily into a chalky mess.  The glycerin in mixing mediums or even hydrating mists (like MAC's Fix+) seems to allow the minerals to stick to the eyelids longer.

Pros: some of the eye shadows have amazing color payoff especially when used wet

Cons: need a sticky base and mixing medium for maximum color payoff

The Shades Of U Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Note: Media samples were provided by a representative of the company for consideration.  All opinions are completely mine.