If you don’t like sparkle, step away from this collection. MAC continues to play in the mineralized arena with Grand Duos, a collection of seven limited edition blush duos (though at times I found myself asking “is it a highlighter? Is it a bronzer?”).
Like The Force, each of these has a marbled side (generally a highlighting shade) and a monochromatic shade (nominally a blush shade). You could use either side individually, or blend them together to yield a third shade, which was almost universally an 50-50 blend of the two. (A fascinating lesson in genetics or color theory.) They were also swatched in this order (marbled, mono, blend).
The most surprising combined shade was in Earth to Earth (mauvey purple brown + dusty peach = uh, rose tan?); the least surprising was Love Rock. Have you seen Steel Magnolias? “[Love Rock,] your colors are pink and pink.”
Moon Rock photographed very sheerly, but in person it was a beautiful shimmery white-pink highlight and a sweet pink blush (the blended effect perhaps reminiscent of loose Sheersheen Lucent?).
I had a hard time choosing favorites among these — they were smooth and nicely pigmented, and all the colors seemed pretty (at least academically; I’m not sure they would all look good on my cheeks). Each of these duos is $22.50, and none is considered eye-safe or lip-safe.
MAC Grand Duos: Light Over Dark, Moon River, Love Rock, Grand Duo, Earth to Earth, Intenso, Hot Planet
>thanks so much for this Karla!!
>Karla I love you! You’re the first person I’ve seen who’s done swatches of both colors separate AND together. So very helpful. Thanks!
>I second Styrch’s comment- that is some serious swatching! You got skillz, yo.
>thank you for the swatches.
They’re very much appreciated
>Thank you Karla for all you have done in this blog! You’ll never know how many bad purchase decisions you made me avoid to make!!!!I am gonna give hot planet and earth to earth a try! Love you
>Thankyou Karla! I love this, I’m so glad I ordered Moon River, i hope it looks nice and subtle on me too! And love rock too. I feel good about these now. Thankyou a million for all the swatching you do! ~sprinkles loving snowflakes~
>love ur site you have great swatches….thanks!
>Awesome swatches Karla! Would you say these are shimmery or glittery? Do they have actual glitter chunks in them?
>I wouldn’t have called them chunky, but they are *very* sparkly. By contrast, I think the Sugarsweet MSFs are frosty.
>I noticed the note stating these are not eye safe. Are the other MSFs (petticoat, so ceylon, redhead) eye safe? What about the other mineral blushes (plesantry, gleeful, merrily)? I have been using the MSFs on my eyes, maybe I shouldn’t!