MAC 2021 Lunar New Year Lipstick Collection and Beauty Blog Rant

 Ross currently has MAC lipsticks which were part of the special-edition release for Lunar New Year 2021. I don’t know how your Ross handles cosmetics, but here’s what mine does… They used to keep them in the jewelry counter, but I guess that got to be a little annoying for employees, so they started putting them in locked clear boxes. You can see what they have and what it costs, but for things like lipstick, which is in an opaque box, you might not have any clue what the color actually is. At least this gives you confidence as a buyer that no one has tried on the makeup or accidentally left the lipstick extended while putting the cap back on. I guess maybe you can ask someone who works at the store to open the box so you can check the colors, but if you’re like me, you don’t want any interaction with people while you are out, even if it saves you some trouble and money by having a better idea of what you might buy.

 But this is the modern age! I saw these lipsticks and knew I was interested in them and took out my phone. Surely I should be able to quickly determine what colors they were by searching through beauty blogs. Surely…

 A few videos popped up at the top of the search, but I didn’t want to start watching potentially long-winded vlogs in the middle of Ross. The information I needed was just a list of color names, a picture of the color and maybe a description of the color to help me assess how good the pictures/my phone screen were representing things. A few blogs popped up, but they were so overrun with ads and pop-ups I struggled to even find if they really were about the lipstick I was looking at. Seriously, I understand wanting to make money from a blog, but at the point where you have an ad for every sentence or picture, you’ve lost readers and are NOT HELPFUL!

 One blog, which had the most useful information (which I only found after leaving the store and searching again when I wasn’t pressed for time) looks like it was Google translated from another language. The names of the lipsticks are all slightly off, but since I did do a blind buy on two of the lipsticks on my first outing, I could confirm that they were sort of accurate in their descriptions with a fairly simple puzzle of what the names of the colors were.

 

Turn Up Your Luck was listed as “Turn Up Your Rack,” a vibrant bright red.

Luck Be a Lady was listed as “Luck Bee Lady,” a smoky brown red.

Brickthrough was correct, but spelled as two words, a dusty rose.

Healthy, Wealthy and Thriving was listed at “Healthy, Wealthy and Sliving,” a true red.

And Playing Koi was mistranslated as “Playing Carp,” losing the pun in the name, a vibrant orange coral.

 

Despite all the words I’ve used to express my dismay at how bad beauty blogs are, my thought here was to present a better version of the beauty blog about these lipsticks. Starting now.

MAC Cosmetics has released a limited edition set of colors for 2021 Lunar New Year. Packaged in vibrant boxes with graphics of goldfish on the colorful tubes, the lipsticks are available in five colors in the “powder kiss lipstick” formulation. The packages on all of the colors are identical.

 

Brickthrough is a dusty pink:

Healthy, Wealthy and Thriving is a traditional blue-red:

Luck Be a Lady is a brownish red:

Playing Koi is a bright orange coral:

Turn Up Your Luck is a bright pink-red. (I’m listing them in alphabetical order and they appear in this order in the pictures.)

 

The powder kiss lipstick formulation has a sweetener in it, so when you lick your lips you get a rush of sugar. They are also infused with a sugary vanilla fragrance. They glide on smooth and are weightless to wear. The color intensity deepens as you swipe back over your lips each time. Here I’ve swiped the colors on my arm. Each one has been applied twice - once lightly and once going back over it several times - so you can see how they darken with repeat application.

 

For my personal preference, I’ll be wearing Brickthrough the most, as a solid everyday color. I’ll wear Luck Be a Lady the second most, when I want something a little more intense, although the brown in it does lean a little bit to the orange side. For some reason, when I allow the girls at cosmetics counters to put makeup on me, putting me in an orange coral color is their favorite thing to do, but I’m unlikely to wear the orange/coral Playing Koi. I’m also unlikely to wear Turn Up Your Luck, since it is just a little too bright pink for me. Healthy, Wealthy and Thriving is a solid blue-red. For those out there who like a red lip, I think it is a winner. Maybe if the pandemic ever gets under control enough that I go out again, I’ll wear Healthy, Wealthy and Thriving for that extra drama of a red lip.

 

MAC no longer carries these limited-edition lipsticks, but you can currently (September 2021) find them at some Ross stores, and I’m sure you’ll be able to find them on websites like eBay for a while.