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| mac :: mystic [the lipstick, not me] |
i could keep going, but i have a few new things that i'm really eager to try out, whereas i was trying to concentrate on the unsung heroes of my collection rather than the flavour of the week, which would be getting attention anyway. and i think that that's pretty much what i did.
a lot of the colours i selected have been with me a long time. i chose to end the experiment with my very favourite mac lipstick ever, mystic. it's a satin finish colour, meaning it's richly pigmented with just a hint of a sheen. the colour is a deep plum-red, not dark enough to be a really "vampy" shade, but quite intense. one of the things that i find makes it unique is the fact that, despite being a deep plum, it's not warm or brick-toned. rather than brown, it seems to have a little deep grey mixed in so that the colour stays comparatively cool. it does make a very nice nighttime shade, but i also find that it's conservative and classical enough for wear during the day or at the office. unfortunately, i guess i'm the only one who thinks of it that way, because mac has chosen to discontinue it, along with many of the satin finish lipsticks that have been part of their lineup for years. i guess that in comparison with newer, creamier, more lustrous formulas, those dusty old satin finishes just don't measure up. i wish someone had pointed out that most people are more concerned with the colour of lipsticks even more than the finish, and that it might be a good idea to make sure that you weren't removing a bunch of unique shades because the finish wasn't as popular. whoops.
if you're one of the few and proud who are mystic fans, you can feel free to chime in with any dupes you've found. so far, in my esarch, the closest i've come up with is yves st. laurent's rouge pur couture #4- rouge vermilion. it's a smidgen warmer, but it'll do in a pinch. i didn't have it to compare side by side, but i swatched revlon's colorburst lipstick in plum and that also seemed like a reasonably close approximate.
speaking of yves st. laurent, i feel like i owe them a wee apology for excluding them entirely from the lip sweepstakes this month. while i was trying to balance my choices, i did end up giving preference to mac, because they still represent the lion's share of my lip colours. but somehow ysl got ignored entirely and chanel got grossly underrepresented. ah well, no system is perfect. i've heard tell of people who use random number generators to determine choices when it comes to using items from a large collection equitably, but i really don't see that working for me. i'll spend twenty minutes flipping through songs on my iphone before finding one that suits my mood. applying tactics of randomness to clothing, shoes, makeup or anything would be dooming me to a sort of paralysis. some day, though, i am going to put together a database that can make suggestions based on me entering a few key factors- my mood, the weather, what i have to do that day... and i'll still probably reject them.
i know that over the last month, i've ended up using a lot of colours [not just mystic] that have been limited edition or that are discontinued. i didn't want to bog things down by offering alternates for all of them, but if there are any that interested you in particular, i'm happy to give it my best shot. on the other hand, if you notice that there are some i used that are now unavailable, for which you've already found a good duplicate, please feel free to share.
big, multi-coloured kisses to all. i'll have to think of a new challenge for myself.
for the moment, i'm testing out samples of mac's new "big bounce" mousse-cream eye shadows. i have a few colours to try and i'll let you know my detailed findings within the next few days.