MAC Naked Honey

MAC’s hotly anticipated (and entirely limited edition) Naked Honey Collection hits the counters this Thursday, and if you’ll excuse the pun, I’ve succumbed to all the buzz. The collection is half-makeup, half-body-stuff, and though the makeup portion is small compared to other releases, I think MAC did well with what they created.

There are three Naked Honey eyeshadows (each $14.50): Creme de Miel, Pollinator, and Buckwheat.

Creme de Miel (Veluxe Pearl) is a very yellow pale gold, and I found myself wondering if it could finally quell my regret over not buying Femme Fi. Pollinator is a Frost, but it almost looks like a matte coral. Buckwheat, also a Frost, is a warm brown with gold sparkles.

There are also three lipglasses (each $14): She’s a Star (champagne gloss with champagne sparkles, a repromote from the very limited edition A Mei collection), Queen Bee (orange gloss with smaller gold iridescent sparkles), and Buzz (red clay with multicolored sparkles). These were — sort of accidentally — swatched very heavily because lipglasses come with a doe’s foot applicator and I swatched with a brush.
The collection also includes two highlight powders — and I don’t know if it’s the honeycomb imprint, but I find myself lusting after both.

I thought Golden Nectar would be a highlight powder for darker skintones, but the MAC sales associate tried it on me as a bronzer, and (at least in-store) I kind of liked the effect — though it has some shimmer and usually you skip shimmer in a bronzer. Honey Light is fairly yellow, and I ended up trying it on as a blush — the sales associate recommended that I pair it with cool eyeshadow to balance the tones.

The highlight powders are each $24.50.
And finally, the collection includes some “bath and body” items. There’s a Honey Salve ($18.50), which contains honey, organic beeswax, sunflower oil, and is meant to be used anywhere (even lips). This smells sweet, but not like honey. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the scent was.

There’s a Hand and Body Cream ($22.50), which contains honey, shea butter, vitamins C and E. This doesn’t exactly smell like honey either, and in an at-counter test, it didn’t dry quite as quickly or as completely as I would like. I walked away from the counter not wanting to touch my purse for fear of leaving marks.

Finally, there’s a body wash for $19.50 (containing lavender, narcissus, jasmine, and blue agave), and two fragrances, Naked Honey and Africanimal. The fragrances are each $22.50.