MAC Makeup

Meet some of my favorite MAC nude shades this week from the MAC Strip Down collection.

I’m a bonafide twig expert! — self proclaimed, of course. I have twigs in every pocket of every jacket. Literally.

And there are two reasons for this:

1. Because I like to wear MAC Twig lipstick
2. And because Connor has to pick up all of the twigs she finds whenever we leave the house and adds them to her collection of “treasures that we keep by the front door.”

So, yeah, with the power vested in me by the State of California, I declare myself a twig expert. 😊

MAC Twig is such an old-school favorite. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is not the color of most tiny branches. Really, I don’t know why it’s even called “Twig,” unless somebody somewhere had a dream about a pinkish brown tree…?

Yeah, it’s in the realm of brown, but I think it’s more pink than brown, so if you like the idea of a nude lip color that splits the difference between a Barbie pink and a true brown, a la MAC Paramount, take a look at Twig.

Like other MAC nude lip greats, it’s subtlety different from other nude lip colors in ways that a casual bystanders would have absolutely NO CLUE about. Like my husband — he would never be able to tell the difference between Velvet Teddy and Twig, but you and I? We would.

Meet some of my favorite MAC nude shades this week from the MAC Strip Down collection.

Fun fact about MAC Whirl: Back in the day (as in pre-2015), Whirl, a dark matte brown with a tinge of rose, only existed as a lip pencil.

Way back before the dinosaurs 🦕 disappeared, I used to outline my lips with Whirl pencil, fill them in, and then top everything off with Chapstick to create my own DIY Whirl lipstick.

Yeah!

In 2015, MAC finally turned this iconic color into a lipstick — the Whirl Matte Lipstick we know and love today.

I know there’s this whole thing that Whirl is a very “Kylie Jenner lips” color (as if she invented it 🙄 ), and yes, it’s definitely one of those lipsticks that will help you get that specific look. In fact, whenever a friend asks me for a Kylie Jenner lips recommendation, first, I try not to outwardly groan… Then, I suggest MAC Whirl. But really, though, whenever I see Whirl, I think more of ’90s supermodels like Linda and Christy and Cindy. It has a very early Bobbi Brown chicness to it IMO, and I love 💖 it.

There’s also another reason why I love it… Because it’s similar to the color of my gums.

Yes, I realize that that is an odd thing to like about a nude lipstick, but I’m looking at my gums here, and it really is the color of my gums. (Side note: I’m not gonna show you my gums. Hi-res pics of my gums do not need to exist on the Internet.)

Maybe that’s why Whirl is the ultimate nude lipstick for so many people. It matches the color of their gums, ha ha ha! Anyway, here it is on lighter skin and darker skin.