Availability: MAC Stores & Online
Price: $20.00 each
Company’s Description
A cream to powder metallic shadow that provides liquid metal effects. Goes on smoothly, blends like a charm. An extremely luxurious highlight/finish for eyes, cheeks and skin.
This review covers all the Metal-X Cream Shadows in MAC’s upcoming Metal-X Collection. The colors are as follows:
- Virgin Silver: White with silver pearl
- Fusion Gold: Light pinky beige with gold pearl
- Palladium: Metallic ash
- Cyber: Metallic silver with silver pearl
- Rusty: Dirty peach gold
- Red Hot Copper: Warm copper
- Venetian Tarnish: Golden tarnished bronze
- Vintage Coin: Metallic olive green
- Gold Carbon: Metallic taupe
Packaging: 8.75/10
Metal-X Cream Shadows come in standard MAC packaging. The lids are clear, allowing you to see the color inside. The compact snaps shut. The packaging does a satisfactory job of keeping the product from drying out, but I would highly recommend keeping these shadows stored such that they aren’t exposed to a lot of air. Otherwise, they do dry up after a few months.
Quality: 9.25/10
The formula for the Metal-X cream shadows has a moderate level of softness and creaminess. If you compare these to the Gareth Pugh Metal-X Cream Shadows, you will find them significantly more stiff and lacking in the mousse-like texture of the Gareth Pugh shadows.
The pigmentation on all the colors is good. All of the colors glide on evenly and the darker colors don’t even need layering. All the colors have frost finishes, but luckily have extremely finely-milled shimmers. The only exception is Cyber, which contains larger silver glitters than the other colors.
Because the formula is drier than the Gareth Pugh cream shadows, I find these last longer before creasing when used on the eyes. Many of the colors can also be used on the face as highlighters. Used on the face, these cream shadows are very long-wearing.
Ease of Use: 9/10
You can apply this product with your fingers or a brush. For use on the eyes, use a thin layer. Even though they will last longer than the Gareth Pugh cream shadows with added layers applied, I would still suggest setting with a powder to ensure long wear. For use on the face, there is no need to set with powder, but you may find using a brush doesn’t pick up the fairly dry product very well. You can use a denser brush or your fingers in this case.
Price: 8.75/10
For $20.00, you get 2.4 grams of cream shadow. Compare this to a pressed shadow which costs $15.00 and contains 1.5 grams or a Paint Pot which costs $17.50 and contains 5 grams. Benefit’s Creaseless Cream Shadows cost $19.00 and contain 4.5 grams while Bobbi Brown’s Metallic Long-Wear Cream Shadows cost $22.00 and contain 3.4 grams of shadow.
Wow, the colors this release are really nice! I think I’m still too lazy to set them with powder, but WOW! The shimmers in Gold Carbon are almost irresistible. It’s very impressive that they don’t need layering!
could you use these as a cream liner?
Eh, the darker colors maybe, but they wouldn’t be the best. You’d want a Fluidline for that, which can also be used as shadows.
They are so nice and finely milled, I really want to try these out in store to see how long they last on me
Oh my god, these look soooo cool! And based on your review, the quality of them must be quite outstanding too
I love cream eye-shadows that are long-wearing too, so I’ll definitely have my eyes on these when they come out! Venetian Tarnish, Vintage Coin and Gold Carbon definitely caught my eye and I’ll definitely be trying them at my Mac counter before I consider purchasing them!
Thanks for the review, Allura! You rock
Sarah(:
You’re welcome. They do take more effort to work with, but I think it’s worth it.