MAC released two small collections on Thursday of last week, Baby Blooms (which we’ll look at tomorrow) and Love That Look, a collection of 12 Starflash eyeshadows, 4 Pearlglide eyeliners, and a repromote of two classic MAC eyeshadow brushes, 239 (eyeshadow laydown) and 217 (eyeshadow blending). Click here to see pictures of those.
The Starflash eyeshadow texture was first introduced a year ago (in a collection called Starflash). Now they’re being reintroduced for a second limited-edition run. These powder shadows are extremely creamy and easy to work with, and just like regular MAC shadows, they’re $14.50 each. Grand Entrance, Dreammaker, Smoke & Diamonds, and Glamour Check! are repromotes from the original Starflash release.
Naturally there’s a lot of excitement surrounding the re-release of Smoke & Diamonds, along with questions about its similarity to loose pigment Sweet Sienna (click here to see a swatch) and Stila’s Diamond Lil (click here to see a swatch). Warm-grey expert Sarita offered this expert analysis:
Sweet Sienna [Sarita's favorite]: Graphite over gold metallic flake
Diamond Lil: Graphite over gold pearl base
Smoke and Diamonds: Graphite shot-through with goldAll three are very similar on the eye, with just a subtle difference in the gold-infusion and depth. Sweet Sienna has the most depth, Smoke and Diamonds the least.
Diamond Lil and Smoke & Diamonds were 99.9% indistinguishable on my lids and Diamond Lil has a much better, smoother, softer finish.
Of course, that’s just one opinion. For me, Sweet Sienna is the coolest, with a tendency to pull blue, so I prefer Smoke & Diamonds. 
Pearlglide eyeliners were first released with a collection called Suite Array (click here to see my original post about them). Pearlglide liners are really soft, creamy, sparkly, water-resistant liners. Black Russian (black with blue sparkles), Molasses, Fly-By-Blu, and Rave are being re-released, but are still limited edition. Pearlglide liners are also $14.50.
MAC Love That Look: Unbasic White, Grand Entrance, Dreammaker, Dream Maker, Ego, Style Snob, Fashion, Rated R, Smoke & Diamonds, Smoke and Diamonds, Fashion Groupie, One-Off, One Off, Strike a Pose, Glamour Check, Glamour Check!, Fly By Blue, Fly-by-Blue, Fly By Blu, Rave, Molasses, Black Russian
>Thank you so much for the swatches!! They're amazing as usual!! Keep it up!
>Hello darling. I follow your blog since a while, but I've never posted a comment before. I live in Italy and MAC shops are not so common, so I am going to buy on line the Garden Graphic palette, after seeing your swatches.
S
But I have a problem. In your swatches, colours are full, write a lot and have a good coverage. Yesterday I found this other blog (I hope posting the link is not a problem) http://www.imizzu.com/beauty/makeup-and-beauty-blog/mac-graphic-garden-and-look-in-a-box-swatches-and-first-impressions/ and as you can see, the swatches are very different. Colours are light, almost invisible, you can recognize just shimmers.
So my question is: can you please tell me how do you take your swatches? With an eyeshadow base, or whatever? I really would like to know if the result is like in your blog or in the other, my shopping cart depends on this
Thank you very much
V
>It's a pleasure to meet you, V! Thanks for leaving a comment.
And now for the long answer. I make my swatches on a bare arm (no base of any kind), with sponge-tipped applicators for the shadows — or sponges for the blushes. (Swatches made with fingertips never show as clearly. To cite your specific example, I think perhaps those swatches were made a little less carefully.) And of course, the paler your skintone, the less pigment is needed to stand out against your skin.
I always push colors to their maximums, because if you can't see the differences between them (which are sometimes subtle), then I don't feel my swatches are useful. Also you want to know how loud your shadow CAN get — certain Stila shadows, for instance, have a low maximum volume.
If the texture was chalky or the color payoff was poor, I would mention it in my review (and sometimes you can tell by the picture). In the case of the Fresh Cut Palette, I thought the last two shades (the orange and the pink) were a little weaker on pigment, but otherwise the textures seemed good and the color payoff pretty strong.
I hope that helped! And I hope you'll love Graphic Garden if you do get it.
>Thank you very much for your kind (and quick
) answer. I feel calmer now 
I was already seeing myself with a new palette completely useless because colours were too light!
By the way, since I've already made you loosing a lot of time… I've found this other palette on line http://www.love-makeup.co.uk/trip-cool-shadow-palette-p-1716.html and I love it! Then, as usual, I've seen a swatch and I became unsure. I've already checked your blog but I wasn't able to find it. Have you done a swatch also of this one?
Thank you very much again for your kindness and sorry for being so annoying!
V
PS: I am pale. The paler you can imagine, with pink undertones! So I suppose colours should be clearly visible! ^^
>Unfortunately those Trip palettes are available in VERY limited distribution — only in Duty Free stores in airports, as far as I know. Since I'm not expecting any international travel anytime soon (regrettable!), I don't think it's going to be possible for me to swatch them.
>Oh, I wasn't asking for a swatch, I simply suppose I was too blind to find it on your blog!
So, extremely rare, huh? That's an interesting way to raise my interest in a palette
V
>Karla, you are so wonderful for these swatches, I can kiss you! Haha
>Thank you very much for these great swatches, they are so well done and I already know from your picture that I am going to buy Grand Entrance for sure!
>Karla, isnt Smoke & Diamonds exactly like the taupe color in Assemblage from colour craft?