Product Reviews

The new Brushtroke Liners in the MAC Great Brows + Brushstroke collection got me thinking about being back in school and having to write the same line over and over when you (I) got in trouble.

Did you ever have to do that? Sit and write the same sentence 100 times, like, “I will not pull Timmy’s mullet,” or something like that? Do kids still do that? I don’t even know if schools teach penmanship anymore, since everything’s on a tablet… #datingmyself

The Browsculpts are back

Anywho. 🙂 The Great Brows + Brushstroke Liner collection is now part of the MAC permanent line with re-promotes of the awesomesauce MAC Brow Sculpts, which are like more affordable versions of Tom Ford’s life-altering Brow Pencil. I ? them!

There are eight $21 shades, and I wear the one called Brun.

Girl, seriously, go there. They’re fantastic, especially with Benefit Ready Set Brow on top.

Not sold on the Great Brows trios…

There’s also a brand new product in the collection — Great Brows — which is a brow powder trio with one shade darker than the other for filling in bare brow spots, as well as a peachy or beige color for highlighting the arches and a couple of teeny brow tools.

To be honest…I’m not in love with Great Brows. The brow powders are too pigmented and soft for me.

I end up with overly dark brows that don’t look quite right, so I’m going to pass on these and use a single pan of eyeshadow from the MAC line to fill any sparse spots instead (I usually go back and forth between Concrete and Brun).

Brushstroke Liner

I’m so excited about these! There are two of them, one in brown and one in black, and they’re $21 each.

So…the first time I talked about the Brushstroke Liners, I mistakenly mixed up Brushtroke with the new MAC pizza cutter liner, which is a totally different thing.

My bad.

To clarify, the pizza cutter liner looks like a tiny pizza cutter, and the Brushstrokes are thin and tapered like a tradition liquid liner pen.

The tip is fantastically flexible — probably the most bendable tip out there now — even more so than LORAC Front of the Line Pro and Tom Ford’s liquid liner.

I love it, and I can see it fabulous if you have small lids that don’t have a lot of space. I can drag it across my lash lines without pulling at my skin, and the super skinny tip draws thin, precise lines.

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It’s been very educational 24 hours.

First, I learned that seasons two and three of The Great British Baking Show ??? are on Netflix (you’re welcome). Second, OMG! I learned that gray is a legit transition color for green and blue eye looks.

Seriously, girl, I had no idea. Here I was, all this time thinking that I was limited to browns in the crease whenever I wore greens or blues on my lids, but no! Turns out gray works too. And yellow. This knowledge comes courtesy of the new MAC Tropic Cool Times Nine palette from the MAC Eyes on MAC collection.

The release features six limited edition Eye Shadow X9 palettes available on counters and online March 2nd through April 13, and Tropic Cool is one of them. And it’s a pretty distinct one, too, because it’s the one with lots of blue and green. You can’t miss it.

What interesting transition colors!

I had no idea how well gray would work in the crease with blue and green looks, or that yellow eyeshadow and gray would even go together.

I mean, I know it works as a combo with clothes and home decor, so I don’t know why I never thought to pair them together on my lids.

That’s the thing about this palette… It’s interesting. It has all these fun, boisterous blues and greens, which are getting me even more in the mood for spring, but it also has these unusual transition colors that make the whole thing interesting and kind of unique.

The new-school X9s rock

You know I had beef with the quality of the old-school X9 shadows. Well, I think this one’s just as good as Semi Sweet and Red Hot. The powders are both easy to blend and pigmented. There is, however, a little fallout, and I find myself doing more cleanup than I do with Semi Sweet or Red Hot, but that could very easily be due, at least in part, to my playing and getting carried away with my swirling and swiping.

So the palette made me do it. 🙂

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If the new MAC Red Hot Eye Shadow X 9 Palette came with a bunch of Hot candy, girl, those candies would be ALL YOU. Ugh! I can’t handle it (leftover trauma from my braces days!).

Anyway, I am NOT a fan of Red Hots, but I am a fan of this smokin’ hot ? palette.

Sorry…you know me. I’m a frequent visitor to The Land of Bad Puns.

Red Hot Times Nine is one of six new X 9 Eye Shadow Palettes in the MAC Eyes on MAC collection coming to counters and websites March 1st through April 13th.

I tested the matte neutral Semi-Sweet palette yesterday, and oh, my goodness! — I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I didn’t used to be a fan of the 9s, but based on Semi Sweet and Red Hot? OMG, SO GOOD. Something’s changed. Word on the street is that MAC reformulated the X9 eyeshadows, and ya know, I believe it. These are SO much softer, easier to blend and more fun to play with than the O.G. X9s were before.

Don’t be intimidated

You may be thinking, “I’m not a red/orange/pink eyeshadow person, Karen. I don’t go there.” Trust me, I get it. Brights are scary, especially reds, but I think you’ll love this palette. I do, and I wear A LOT of neutrals and brown eyeshadow.

I did this look here mainly to test, and I didn’t expect to like it enough to take pics. Even though I could’ve blended it better, I still like how it came together. It’s vibrant, fun and still wearable.

The look isn’t too crazy, but it’s juuust crazy enough.

Logical transitions

What I LOVE about this palette is how the pink, reddish pink, reddish orange and orange all share the same DNA. They transition beautifully into one another because they aren’t dramatically different.

I think that things can go wrong sometimes when you’re using bold eyeshadow palettes — and I’ve totally done this — that don’t have the necessary “in-between” shades.

GIRL, I’ve done some terrible hot pink and purple eye looks where it just looks like BAM! — a whole mess of pink, and really nothing else around to ease the transitions. That’s what I was expecting from Red Hot, but surprise! It has the right “in-betweens,” so it’s easy to create gradients where each color flows into the next, and that’s the next-level sh*t that elevates this from a good palette to a great palette.

You’ll also appreciate the neutrals

There’s a taupe, beige and three plum shades, all of which are essential, because you’ll probably need to incorporate at least one or two of them into your looks; otherwise, you’ve just got hot pink or red floating all up in space on your face. You can use the taupe, beige and plums to define the boundaries of your eyes, anchor the bold colors, and make things look legit.

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