As requested, here’s a review to follow up on my last FOTD post with the MAC Pastels x 9 palette.
Aren’t the colours pretty? I love how different this is from anything else I own; my single eyeshadows tend to be either glittery, bright or duochromatic, and most of my palettes are very neutral-based. This fills a real niche in my collection.
Of course that raises a good question: How useful is a palette of pastels to someone who’s never bothered seeking them out before?
To be honest, while this personally isn’t something I could take this on vacation and use exclusively for a week, it’s been a very welcome “expansion pack” to my existing eyeshadow collection. A lot of these shadows are great as base and transition shades for colourful looks that you don’t want to muddy up with neutrals.
Per MAC’s description, the colours (left to right, top to bottom) are:
New Nude: Whitish pink highlighter (Satin)
Fresh Innoncence: Ivory frosty warm white (Frost)
Spice Bar: Grayish taupe (Satin)
Flounce : Pale pastel pink (Matte)
Restless Rose: Pinkish Mauve (Satin)
Free Roaming: Dirty lavender (VLX)
Spring Moon: Baby blue (Frost)
Greystroke: Pale greenish silver (Satin)
Sweet Green: Soft muted green (Satin)
On to the swatches. As you can see, these are light and semi-sheer which makes this a very forgiving, easy to wear range of colours.
I’ve gotten a couple questions about this palette in the context of SUQQU, so I’m going to share my thoughts with the class: although the lightness of this palette does have a distinctly Asian feel, the textures are on a whole more western (i.e. not sheer shades that are meant to be layered, but rather opaque-ish pastels that are a little more true-to-pan).
That being said, Fresh Innocence is a dead-on dupe for the bottom right shade in Ex-21 Murasakisuishou, and several other shades are giving me massive déjà-vu as well though I can’t quite place them. So for anyone who has been curious about SUQQU but unwilling to risk a pricey blind-buy online, this palette is an excellent way to test the pastel waters and see how you feel about light eye makeup.
It’s not going to be for everyone, but I do honestly reach for it on days when I just want to wear a softer, more youthful makeup look. By the way, if I look a little…strange…in these photos, it’s because Adam shot me with a new camera system.
All the colours play pretty well with each other, but thinking of them as trios either horizontally or vertically (both ways work well) takes the guesswork out of this palette and makes it very user-friendly. I used the middle row – Flounce, Restless Rose and Free Roaming – for this look and finished it off with a touch of New Nude in the inner corners. And because I’m sure someone will ask otherwise, I’m wearing YSL Rouge Volupté in #1 Nude Beige on my lips.
This product was provided as a press sample, however all opinions and observations are my own and not influenced by the brand or its PR team. This post contains affiliate links.
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