REVIEW | MACXMARIE Lipstick

I recently found myself in the amazing city of Lyon, and I’ve totally fallen in love with it since. It introduced me to a whole load of new experiences; new people, my new favourite destination, new food (yes, I’m counting French McDonalds as new food)… and a new MAC lipstick only available in France!

I used to adore MAC’s lipstick range, and had just started collecting them when I ended up ditching every lip product I owned in favour of Kylie Jenner’s Lip Kits last year. But one fateful day, I found myself venturing into one of their stores in search of their Studio Fix compacts. Problem was, though, that I had spent a good majority of my trip believing that as I was in amongst the locals, my poor ability in speaking French would mean that I couldn’t converse with anyone, not even in a store. So, I gave up on waiting to be served… but on my way out, holy smokes, the most amazing nude-pink lipstick jumped out at me. Not literally, but it might as well have.

After taking the photo, I realised my camera just wasn’t managing to capture the colour the way it looks in person! So here’s one I stole off the MAC France website to show what exactly we’re dealing with here (the shame):

I’d been searching for this exact colour for ages, and just couldn’t settle on one I really liked. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I couldn’t bring myself to leave without. From what I could tell, it was a limited edition shade for SS17, so I went straight to my best friend Google in a desperate attempt to source it on the MAC UK site – nothing! At this point I was back at the hotel and couldn’t figure out if delivery was possible from the French site, and so I gave up, defeated and deflated.

UNTIL. An absolute angel in the form of a local – who later informed me that they can in fact manage both French AND English, shock – went into the store a few weeks later and got it to me. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful, nor ashamed at my desperation when it comes to make-up.

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A post shared by Marie Lopez (@enjoyphoenix)

The lipstick is one of a release of 10 creations in a collaboration between MAC and a host of global beauty influencers, with each one having been designed by the likes of beauty bloggers, YouTubers and beauty editors, and are only available in certain countries depending on the lipstick (As far as I can gather, the locations involved are the UK, the US, Canada, Brazil, the Middle East, France, Germany and Australia). This one that I managed to snap up was created by Marie Lopez (EnjoyPhoenix), and is only available for purchase in France.

I was really intrigued as to how I’d find it given that I only ever wear matte; Marie opted for a glaze lipstick, which I’d never usually even consider. But I have to say, I’m totally impressed – and a little bit concerned for when I can’t purchase it any more!

(Apologies for having to use flash – I was losing my natural light, plus it helped to accurately show the colour!)

It’s described on the website as being “a creamy nude lipstick, perfect to wear every day” (roughly translated from French, of course), and despite being such a simple sentence, I don’t think I could sum it up any better. First off, the fact that it’s a glaze means that it’s not as heavy as my usual matte in terms of both colour and application – which is already a win for me, as I was looking for exactly that during the summer months. I haven’t bothered wearing anything else just because it’s been matching with just about anything I wear clothes and make-up wise. I normally really struggle with finding a decent nude colour, too, just because I’m so pale and they tend to make me look a tad washed out. The pink hues in this shade make sure that isn’t a problem, woo hoo!

As well as being a great nude, it’s also got the added bonus – totally a bonus – of having a really pretty, shiny finish, so I’ve even been able to wear it when I’ve been heading out at night. Annoyingly, I’ve been ill the last few days so I’m not exactly looking my best – otherwise I’d have got some photos of me actually wearing it!

The only thing is of course that after wearing the Kylie Lip Kit for so long, I was used to not having to re-apply often if at all, so that was about the only flaw I could possibly think of. Not even much of a negative!

Happy National Lipstick Day y’all!