I was able to try some of the products from the MAC Art of Eye collection that came out earlier this month. I was able to try the very bright single shadows from this collection, as well as the monochromatic smokey palette called Masat Al Lail which is in fact the same quad called Gentle Fume from the Smoke Signals collection of 2007.
Before I go into that, here are the single shadows that I have from this collection:
Bottom: Parrot, Gameela
MAC Parrot eye shadow
I believe these names are Middle Eastern in origin, except of course Parrot. Farasha is a bright deep matte, orange, and it's beautiful because it's not a very neon kind of orange, but a deeper hue. It's great either as a lid, crease, outer lid or as a transition color. It is matte so it is kinda on the dry side. A good, tacky, colored base would help in the slip and application of the product.
Gameela is a bright magenta in the veluxe formula. It has an easy slip and the pigmentation is pretty good. I am not too wild about this because I hardly wear pink shadow.
Parrot I believe is the star of the collection. It was a very much coveted shadow around six years ago, and people would pay almost a hundred bucks on ebay and blog sales for this. It's a beautiful deep aqua blue with bright green and blue pearl in the frost formula, although lately there has been a lot of Parrot dupes from different brands. It's still a beautiful shade and even though I don't wear a lot of bright blues, I will definitely wear this from time to time. If I do wear neutral shades on the lid, I can always use this on the lower lashline for a pop of color. Pigmentation is good and the finish is beautiful.
As I said, the Masat Al Lail quad in the MAC Art of Eye collection used to be called Gentle Fume from the MAC Smoke Signals collection. This was how it was described way back in 2007:
A monochromatic quad of four modern cool-toned Eye Shadows in the sultry spirit of Smoke Signals. Features three limited edition shades: Waft, Gentle Fume and Rondelle, matched-up with Carbon. Texturally: an intense mix of matte and velvet.
Rondelle: Light silver with white pearl
Carbon: Intense black
Gentle Fume: Mid tone grey with silver pearl
Waft: Deep blue grey
Eye Shadow x4
Masat Al Lail
Rondelle - Light silver with white pearl (matte) (My take: one of the very few highlighters that I have that are matte. A welcome change indeed.)
Carbon - Intense black (matte) (My take: I have always wanted to have Carbon in my stash. It's part of the permanent collection of MAC, and this just completes any smoky eye look. You can't go without this if you want to go for a black smoky eye.)
Gentle Fume - cool midtone grey with silver sparkle (velvet) (My take: this is a re-promote of the Gentle Fume eyeshadow from 2006's Holiday Smoked Eyes palette and of course from the 2007 Gentle Fume quad, and it's a great color for blending with the darker colors in the palette to create depth and dimension. One of my favorite colors in the quad.)
Waft - deep blue grey (matte) (My take: I love how most of the shadows in this quad are mostly matte. It perfectly makes sense because a shiny, shimmery dark eye is just a bit tacky to me.
I am kinda disappointed that they changed the name of this quad, as I really associate the name Gentle Fume with this quad. This is how the Gentle Fume and Masat Al Lail quads look side by side:
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Left: MAC Gentle Fume, Right: MAC Masat Al Lail
They are exactly the same, except for the name!
Chromagraphic Pencils:
Swatches:
The MAC Chromagraphic Pencils are uber-bright, almost neon, and they would really make your liner stand out! I love how amazingly pigmented these liners are. They're almost like colored chalk in how they apply, but they are not "chalky" - I hope that makes sense! They are not too creamy, but are not too dry either, which I prefer because these would probably break if they are too soft.
In the look below, I used the MAC Hi-Def Cyan chromagraphic pencil on the lower lashline, which is a very bright cyan blue.
Can you see how Hi Def Cyan chromagraphic pencil truly stood out in this look? I also used Parrot on the lid, and the darker colors of Masat Al Lail quad on the crease and outer lid, along with the Gentle Fume shadow as a transition color, and Rondelle shadow to highlight the browbone and the inner corners.
All in all, if you love smokey or bright colored shadows and liners, this collection is for you. There is also one other quad that I don't have, called Rimal Dahabia, and it's more of a red-brown palette.
Personally, I like Parrot and the Masat al Lail quad, as well as the chromagraphic pencils.
(Note: Media sample was provided by PR for consideration. All opinions are mine.)
1 comment
the names aren't just middle eastern, they're arabic; gameela means pretty, farasha means butterfly and masat al-layl means night's diamond.
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