MAC Bare My Soul Eye Shadow X 4 ($44)

Because I generally try to avoid bubbling vats brimming with bacteria, I’m not the type to spend my summer nights hot tubbing (unless it’s with RyGos or J-Ren). But if I were, my dream scene would look something like this:

So totally feeling this makeup!

I was so excited about the MAC Temperature Rising collection’s highlighted skin, metallic, glossy lips and strong focus on smoldering eyes that toe a slightly menacing line between seductive and spooky that I tried to paint a picture of it over the phone to my mom (who never wants to talk about makeup), and the best I could come up with was, “The girl in the promo pic looks like Nelly Furtado sitting in a hot tub at night under a heat lamp wearing Mrs. Roper’s jewelry. Oh, and she’s sandwiched between two dudes from Magic Mike.”

Eye Shadows, counter clockwise from the green pan: When In Rio (a deep green with a copper pearl and a Frost finish), Friendly (a deep bronzy chocolate with a Veluxe Pearl Finish), Romantico (a light taupe bronze with a Veluxe Pearl finish), and Bare My Soul (a frosted gold with a Lustre finish)

With three neutral powder eye shadows and a single smokey green pan, Bare My Soul ($44) must be a hit among cool, stylish mallards… It has a brown, a taupe, a gold and a coppery green.

Quack! See, Mallard duck colors. The slightly shiny finish even says, “I’m a mallard duck, yo.”

What do hot mallards have to do with MAC Temperature Rising, the release to which Bare My Soul belongs?

Absolutely nothing, far as I can tell. Well, the mallard part doesn’t, but the colors sure seem conducive to summery smokey eyes with copper, gold, bronze and brown.

I’ll use the taupe and gold for dusting all over my lids (and/or highlighting) and the chocolatey bronze and coppery green for deepening and smoking out my look.

Swatches from the left: Romantico (a light taupe bronze with a Veluxe Pearl finish), Bare My Soul (a frosted gold with a Lustre finish), Friendly (a deep bronzy chocolate with a Veluxe Pearl finish) and When in Rio (a deep green with a copper pearl and a Frost finish)

The coppery green, also known as When in Rio — jinx! You owe me a Coke if you thought, “That’s a Club dupe.” It reminds me a lot of MAC Club on my NC 42 skin, except a little more brown and less red.

MAC Bare My Soul Eye Shadow X 4

I swear these powders feel softer than the powders in the past few limited edition quads, but I’m not totally sure why… Sure do like it though.

PRICE: $44
AVAILABILITY: Coming May 16 to maccosmetics.com and May 23 to MAC counters and stores
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: B+/A-

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Soft Serenade Lipglass

“It was a steamy night — hot like Manila in July — and I was feeling naughty.”

That could either be the beginning of a bad piece of pulp fiction or a commercial for MAC’s new 28-piece summer collection, Temperature Rising. Either way, it sounds hot, right?

From the left: Liquid Passion, Soft Serenade, Underdressed and Rhythm

If last year’s dimpled, cheerful Hey Sailor was a celebration of pin-up girl fun in the sun, this year’s Temperature Rising is like meeting a boy at a dubstep club and dancing your @ss off past curfew.

Steamy neutrals, feverish flecks of gold and copper and sizzling taupe, peach, magenta and charcoal set this new 28-piece collection ablaze.

It’s hot stuff! — and I want to watch it burn all day and night…

From the left: Liquid Passion, Soft Serenade, Underdressed and Rhythm

Stay hydrated, because the four Lipglasses ($16.50 each) in this launch can cause overheating, especially if you like wearing neutral lips with bold summer eyes.

Together, creamy nude Liquid Passion (like a peachier version of Spite); pearly, neutral pink Soft Serenade; pearly, plummy bronze Underdressed and pearly magenta-violet Rhythm complete an entire wardrobe of neutral summer lips, covering you for everything from bronze smokey eyes to eye looks with shimmery blues and greens.

Swatches from the left: Liquid Passion, Soft Serenade, Underdressed and Rhythm

Liquid Passion Lipglass

Wearing the Nude shades from the new MAC Nudes & Metallics collection

First things first: I have accidentally typed the words, “MAC Nudes & Metallica,” one too many times this afternoon.

Second thing: get your butt back in that chair! I know, I know… Another neutral collection for eyes, lips and cheeks?!

But check it. There’s an Olivia Pope-esque elegance to the nine pieces in the MAC Nudes sub-collection, so don’t whip your ponytail just yet. These are the kinds of neutrals I’d wear to a corner office gig if I had a Prada and Gucci budget.

Nudes, the quieter neutral half of the new MAC Nudes & Metallica Metallics collection, is available now exclusively at MAC Pro stores.

The blush and the four splendid, expensive-looking eye shadows feel soft, like tracing fingers across silk sheets, and the satin finish breathes life into the sheer pink and tan shadow shades, each of which comes in a warm and cool tone.

As for the four creamy Lipsticks, MAC’s Amplified finish gives them a slight sheen that’s sure to garner some attention (although if your lips are very pigmented like mine, you might want to blank them out first with concealer to accentuate the nuances among the colors).

Are you ready? Let’s get Nude…

Bare Minimum Eye Shadow, a soft and sheer pinkish nude with pearl and a satin finish ($15)

Body Conscious Eye Shadow, a warm and sheer mid-toned nude with a satin finish ($15)

Exposed Eye Shadow, a sheer, neutral, mid-toned warm nude with a satin finish ($15)

MAC Subverted Lipstick…

Late last night, outside in a field under the light of the full moon (or was it the lamp on the nightstand by my bed?), I brought a frosted, deep plum lipstick from the MAC Nudes & Metallics collection up to my lips and thought, “On my list of favorite supernatural things…turning into a vampire ranks way down near the bottom.”

There’s the whole blood thing, the vampire politics, the aversions to garlic and ultraviolet light, the blood…

It just seems so very, very depressing.

But I guess if I weren’t given a choice in the matter and suddenly found myself turned into a vampire, I wouldn’t be taking my style cues from the squeaky clean Cullens up in Forks. Hell, no! I’d go the Underworld route (mostly because of the interesting makeup potential).

Picture it: dark eyes, dark lips and chiseled cheeks. Frosted deep reds, browns, berries and purples.

Seductive meets sumptuous meets scary, like the nine pieces from the MAC Metallics collection, one of two sub-collections from the limited edition Nudes & Metallics release, available now exclusively at MAC Pro stores.

Clad in any mix of Metallic’s four lipsticks, four eye shadows and its solitary blush, you’ll be so ready to pursue your prey. As you confronted him/her/them (whatevs, you’re hungry!) in a dark alley, they wouldn’t know whether they should attempt to run away, try to make out with you, or ask you what you’re wearing on your eyes, cheeks and lips.

Here’s a quick look at eight of the nine pieces…

Brazenly Eye Shadow, a deep metallic purple with a Veluxe Pearl finish ($15)

Crimson Tryst Eye Shadow, a deep metallic dirty berry with a Veluxe Pearl Finish ($15)

Deep Fixation Eye Shadow, a metallic brown with a Veluxe Pearl finish ($15)

That there is Rustic Red and Purple Fusion on my lids and lash lines from the MAC Fall ’13 Forecast/Eyes palette

Cue the lights! Music! Now Models, hit the runway! And you, vertically-challenged 30-something cat lady girl, hit the hallway! The show is about to begin!!

Straight off the catwalks of Paris and New York (and the hallways of Novato), beside the Fall ’13 Forecast/Lips palette (SO GOOD), comes MAC’s new $40 Fall ’13 Forecast/Eyes palette of six new Cream Colour Shadows in fashion-forward fall colors.

The moderately pigmented, easy-to-build colors in the pocket-sized palette range from rockstar Oil-Slick Black to admin assistant Oyster.

The first time I patted one of these thin, slightly sticky cream shadows on a bare lid, I purred, then oohed and ahed at how easy it was to blend with the other shades. Then I thought, “Now when I walk Tabs, I can pretend I’m walking a Marc Jacobs catwalk.”

BAM! Pop that hip!

MAC Fall 13 Forecast Eyes swatches from the left: Oyster, Scarab Green, Smoked Indigo, Rustic Red, Oil Slick Black and Purple Fusion