MAC Snow Ball Eye Compact/Gold

I learned two shocking factoids — absolutely shocking! — related to vision and eyes in the last week, and the first is that you’re supposed to replace your contact lens cases every three months in order to avoid getting an eye-borne bacterial infection (I saw it in a random video about contacts that someone posted on Facebook).

Were you already aware of this? Because I had no idea. Apparently, I’m disgusting, because I usually keep my cases until I lose a cap, OMG!

Also mind blowing: the MAC Snow Ball Eye Compacts, ’cause they’re shockingly good.

Unlike the majority of the MAC holiday palettes I’ve seen over the past something-number of years, most of which have been passable, but not really memorable, the two in this year’s Snow Ball holiday collection are downright memorably great.

The first is called Rose Gold, and it’s my favorite of the two, but the other one, Gold, is no slouch either. I just think it’s maybe a smidgen less epic than Rose Gold…but we’ll come back to that in two swishes of a tabby’s tail.

Either way, with both of them, the quality is there, and I’m all for it!

Like the Rose Gold Compact, the Gold one is $29.50 and comes with six powder eyeshadows. Two of the shadows are flashy, glittery Dazzleshadows (there’s a white gold and a yellow gold), and other four are powder shadows in MAC’s regular eyeshadow formula (a satiny nude peach; a mid-tone satiny brown; a matte charcoal; and a sparkly, glittery grayish black that isn’t quite as sparkly as the two Dazzleshadows).

The Gold one is much more neutral and less pink than the Rose Gold one, and I think it’s generally more wearable. I’ve worn it on top of MAC’s fabulous Prep + Prime 24-Hour Extend Eye Base and haven’t experienced any skipping, patchiness or fallout during application, and the shadows keep going and going and going, so the wear time? Good stuff.

Although I think the shadows in the Gold one could work well on many more skin tones than the shadows in the Rose Gold one, you’d almost definitely have to incorporate something like MAC Soba or Cork as a transition color, because if you look at how the Gold palette is arranged, on one side you’ve got all of your lighter shadows, and all of your darker shadows on the other, but there aren’t really any colors in the middle to bridge transition between them.

Having something to bridge the gap between the lighter and the darker shadows is practically a necessity, and that’s where golden brown Soba and/or Cork could help.

If you’d prefer to streamline and don’t want to add anything else into the mix, the Gold compact would be a good option for simple eye looks. I might use the nude peach in the crease, one of the gold glitters on my lids, and then line my lash lines with either the brown or one of the black shades. Super easy and not fussy at all!

In case you’re feeling it, Gold is a limited edition holiday palette, so you might want to snap it up sooner rather than later. It’s at MAC counters and online right now.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen